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Edited on Sun Aug-01-10 01:37 PM by PCIntern
I thought I'd share this with the Community...
I received a call from a patient of mine who's going away on business tomorrow (Monday) and his front bridge had fallen out, so of course I agreed to meet him at the office. It's a slightly rainy day here in Philly, but the Schuylkill Expressway was pretty jammed going Eastbound, the Martin Luther King Drive is closed for recreational activity during Daylight Savings Time season, so I elected to come in via 34th Street, past the Zoo.
There had been an enormous 53' tractor-trailer in front of me the entire trip from Belmont, down Parkside Ave., and I thought a couple times of passing him when I could, but elected not to, b/c it's just not safe to do that on these streets due to trolley tracks, potholes, and oncoming traffic, so I held up behind him.
We both made the turn at the Zoo and I was following him at a fairly close, but relatively safe, distance. But something...SOMETHING made me drop back a bit, say 30 yards or so as we passed the Zoo.
Two or three seconds after I did so, the front of his trailer struck a wet, overhanging branch and an ENORMOUS large branch of the tree fell directly behind the trailer. This branch was at least a foot and a half thick with full foliage and smaller, if you want to call them that, branches. I swerved safely into the oncoming lanes, there was no traffic oncoming. HAd I jammed on my brakes the guy behind me most certainly would have hydroplaned and hit me - he was a bit too close.
The point is, that a series of strange circumstances might have led to my serious injury or even death, and just this morning - really, a few minutes ago, everything was just fine and dandy. I'm lucky I suppose. I have no idea why I slowed down, except that once in a while you get that strange sensation when you're driving; it's hard to say why or if it's just coincidence that you remember your actions just prior to an event, and you wouldn't remember them otherwise. The physicist Richard Feynman once remarked that he was thinking one late night about a terminally ill aunt of his, the phone rang at that exact instant...and it had absolutely nothing to do with his aunt.
Nevertheless...I'm a bit shaken by this. I didn't say a word to the patient about it of course, since it would be as though I were trying to induce a guilt-trip, which I wouldn't of course.
Weird and once again, dodged a bullet.
And the week has not yet even begun...
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