My crazy journey home from Argentina.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, or through various Twitter-originated feeds (like Facebook), you may have gathered that I was in an auto accident.  A pretty bad one, actually, and without even a little bit trying to exaggerate or be dramatic, it really was potentially deadly.  But I was able to (literally) run (not walk) away with only superficial abrasions and a band of bruises across my torso.

I'm not sure how to organize the story, so I'll first just tell the story (mostly) in temporal order, then I'll provide some context.

I was being driven by what we in the 'States would call a "sedan service" from my hotel in Mar del Plata, Argentina to the international airport in Buenos Aires.  The car was what we, here, would call a late-model Toyota Corolla.  (Read here or here if you're wondering why I was in Argentina.)  As I got into the car, I decided to put on my seatbelt, which is something I don't normally do in the back of a car.  But, having witnessed the Argentine driving behaviors, I figured it was probably a good idea.  Especially if I dozed off.

We were just beyond half way into a 4-5 hour drive along entirely pastoral landscape when we could see smoke on the horizon.  As we approached it became clear that the smoke was near the highway.  Then, we saw that the smoke was drifting over the highway on our side from a serious flame-shooting brush fire . 

The driver switched the vents to "recirculate" but we could still smell the smoke.  We slowed down, started into the haze, then suddenly we were in a complete smoke-out.  NOTHING but off-white all around us.

In an instant I was thinking, "Whoa! This could get really bad" and in fact, I had just enough time to say "whoa!", but before I could say anything else, **BAM!**  We'd run into something else pretty hard.

The smoke was so dense we couldn't see what we hit.  I checked the driver he checked on me, we were both OK.  In that moment, more cars were adding themselves to the fray to our left.  I got the door open all-the-while bracing for a possible impact from behind.  I was weighing my options: stay in the car and get hit, get out and get hit while on foot.  

I bailed out of the car.  My first step or two was back from where we came (thinking I had some idea of how far it would be to get out from the smoke) but in an instant I changed direction and started running through the smoke in the direction of travel.  Really, it was more like a running back fake-out.  First one direction, then another.

It took only 5-6 running strides and I popped out into clear-er air.  To my astonishment, the first thing I nearly ran into was a female firefighter with a bewildered/panicked look on her face, and a couple of cops.  WHY THE FRAK HADN'T THEY CLOSED THE FRAKKING HIGHWAY!?

Cars were still screeching and crunching behind me, other passengers and drivers were emerging from the smoke.  A car or two were attempting to avoid the scene by heading into the grassy median.  Presently, a parent was running toward the "authorities" holding a screaming child in their arms.  People were emerging from the wreckage.  One woman was being comforted by a companion.  He left and I saw her go into an uncontrollable shaking.

I gave myself a quick "run up" and found mild surface pain on my right arm and my left shin, and mostly aches all along my left torso.  No bleeding anywhere and no loss of motion in my neck, back, arms or chest.  I already knew my legs worked.  But, I could tell that there would be copious quantities of Ibuprofen in my future.

After the fire nearest the accident was extinguished I went back for my stuff.  Everything was intact and unharmed, and (miraculously) the car was never hit from behind.

The driver called the service he works for, they dispatched a car from Buenos Aires to fetch me, since we were about 2hr from Buenos Aires, and closer to 3 from where we left.

The saga didn't end there.

Not really to my surprise, the 2nd driver arrived late and that's where the real fear started to bubble to the surface.

The shmuck replacement driver shows up... you'd think he or the service would have the presence of mind to grab a couple of bottles of water for me and the other driver... after all, we were standing out there in the 90+ deg sun for at least 2 hours, and the original driver would have to stay behind with his car (remember, it's nearly summer in the southern hemisphere).

To add to the timeline, the second driver seemed to need to be given directions to the airport from the first driver!  A professional driver who doesn't know his way TO THE AIRPORT?!?!  Not only that, but he needed to stop for gas.  That was a small blessing because it allowed me to get a couple of bottles of something to drink for the first time in over 6 hours, 3 of which were out in the sun.  Then he got lost following the 1st driver's directions (which neither wrote down), and seemed to doubled back to a point from which he knew how to get to the airport.  As if that wasn't enough, I'm quite sure he was near-sighted, and he was driving at times at nearly 100mph.

I noted that his A/C didn't work, his gas gage didn't work, my seatbelt was broken (but I got it fastened), and when it got dark he didn't have working primary headlights so that he only had high-beams... At one point, he was passing another car with an oncoming car (also, no lights) right there!  (Which is only possible because the Argentine idea with driving has more to do with road space than lines on the road anyway.)  So, really, in their minds, it didn't matter that we didn't clear the car being passed, the two cars in the lanes just nudged outward to allow all three vehicles to be abreast for a moment, with our car straddling the stripes.

As I said, his driving was more frightening than the initial accident...

I arrived to the airport with MOMENTS to spare and was grateful that the airline even let me on board.  (Let alone to be alive.)

Three of my colleagues from the SEI (also attending the conference) were on my flight and were VERY relieved to see me get on.  They were keeping up with the play-by-play via SMS and spotty mobile connections.  In fact, they were in a car (originally) about an hour behind me, and when they went through the accident scene they saw me and the everyone's astonishment, the driver wouldn't stop to pick me up!

Here's where some context on Argentina comes in:

Most people don't speak English.  Not even those in the "service" industry.  And, when you tell them you don't speak Spanish, they keep talking to you in their warp-speed brand of Spanish anyway.  So when my colleagues' driver wouldn't stop it wasn't also very surprising for them to later decipher (one of them spoke a little Spanish) that he didn't want to stop "and cause another accident".  (B.S.!)

Road signs and surface markings aren't even treated as suggestions.  They're artwork.  Graffiti.  Color commentary.  In other words, they're pretty much ignored.  They drive in a way that make Italians look like completely sane.

Many intersections are COMPLETELY uncontrolled.  No stop signs, no yield signs.  NOTHING.

Non-motorized travel INCLUDING pedestrians have ZERO right-of way.  You must look 20 times in both directions before and as you cross any street because chances are, a vehicle coming towards you is speeding AND ignoring any road signs, traffic lights, and other vehicles, let alone the fact that you are in the middle of the intersection.

Using seatbelts, child car seats, and helmets on motorbikes are an anathema.  A family of three on a motorcycle with a child sandwiched between parents, no one wearing any head protection, was not an uncommon sight.  Motorcycles have just as little right-of-way as pedestrians and bicycles. 

Children sitting in their parent's lap in the front seat of a car (between the parent and the dash) was also a very common sight.  Despite an empty back seat.  I saw several such configurations passing through the accident scene.  Had any one of them been party to the accident, and there'd likely be an entire family structure wiped out in an instant.

As it is, I'm impressed no one was killed in our incident considering how dangerous it was, and, how little regard they have for sensible driving behaviors.

In the end, I'm home, in relative sanity.  And, I can say I was able to run (not walk) away from the scene. 

Come, my darling, Ibuprofen.  Your sweet song calls to me.