The ticking is the first thing I remembered that cold, dry night. The ticking, and then the pain.
Everything hurt, except my legs — go figure — and that was 'concerning'. Legs aren't meant to bend at those angles, and I was fairly sure the engine resting against my knees had been hot once.
Someone must have seen, or heard.
A policeman stuck his head in to let me know more help was on the way.
The drugs came, and then nothing hurt!
Some cutting, freedom, and then to hospital.
And I still couldn't see. My glasses, like the windshield, were gone.
When I was about 19, I blacked out behind the wheel, and crashed through a granite hedge (there's a gate there now). When I regained consciousness, both legs were bent mid-shin. One folded under the seat, the other under the handbrake handle.
And yes, the engine was sitting on my lap - the car then being several feet shorter than it was when I left home.
Old car, so no airbags! Which is why there was a 'my head shaped dent' in the steel steering wheel. My right arm had got cut up going through the door window, and the seatbelt left some pretty decent bruises.
The worst / most amusing aspect was that, at the time, I was working for the ambulance service, so I knew everyone involved in cutting me out of the car and carting me off.
The drugs were good. The farmer whose field I'd 'parked' in returned my windscreen a few days later. Never did find my glasses though.
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