yne721
10+ year member
SWINE FLU!!!!
CLIFFS NOTES at bottom of second post
I was supposed to go to the Rock The Bells concert in New York on sunday the 29th. The plan was, my girlfriend, her best friend Erin, Erins little brother and myself drive to new york starting on saturday morning, spend the night at a hotel, go to the concert on sunday and drive home when it was over.
Day 1.(saturday morning) We start driving to new york. Pretty easy drive for the first 6 hours, as it's all turnpike and highway. We left at 8:30 am with brett driving his car. At noon, we pull over to get gas, and i take over driving. When we got into pennsylvania, there was scattered construction every so often, no big deal. I just set my cruise control for 80 and pretty much stayed in the passing lane the entire time getting over to the right in the rare occasion someone was going faster than me. We come into another section of construction and we have to move into one lane of traffic behind a semi. I'm following behind the semi about 5 or 6 car lengths back because we're only going 45-50mph. The semi runs over one of the big orange construction barrels and it shoots out of his tire infront of me and i have to swerve around it. close call but no big deal. around 5pm even though we're only about half an hour out of the city i let brett take over driving again, because i didn't sleep the night before, i pulled an all nighter so i wouldn't sleep through picking up my girlfriend and meeting up with brett and erin. So brett takes over, and we get into new york.
Our hotel is in a shitty part of brooklyn. It's not like the super ghetto, but it's definately not a nice area. So we get to the hotel, and i suggest we take the subway(which is right outside our hotel window) into manhattan and walk around the city and go shop at all the nice stores but the girls, having grown up in nice white suburbs, were too scared to even leave the hotel and i wasn't going to go by myself just because it wouldn't be any fun. so i go to sleep, because I don't want to sit in a hotel room watching t.v. all night.
The morning comes, and I woke up around 6am because i went to sleep so early, so i decide to go downstairs and get some free continental breakfast(orange juice and donuts were the only things to choose from) then i went outside to have a cigarette. I came back in and got on the hotel computer so i could write down the times every band is going on and at what stage. I go back up to the room and everyone is still asleep, so i lay down for an hour or two but couldn't fall back asleep. Everyone else wakes up, they have breakfast and we leave.
here is where our weekend turned to shit.
Day 2
sunday) we're on our way to randalls island where the concert is. we've been in the car for about 10 minutes, just following the GPS to randalls island. Brett misses the turn he's supposed to make, so the GPS remaps our route and tells us to turn onto the next one way street going the same way, a street called Cornelius. We turn onto cornelius and we're driving a couple blocks, and we come up on a street called knickerbocker. I say "knickerbocker, nice name" as we're stopped at our stop sign. The people on knickerbocker don't have a stopsign but we do. so brett looks both ways and it's clear as far as he can tell considering there's cars parked up and down knickerbocker on both sides, so his sight is limited. so he starts to inch up far enough to make sure there is nobody coming down this one way street, as he's inching up it still looks clear(from my point of view anyway, i'm in the backseat at this point) so brett hits the gas to start going through the intersection. just as he hits the gas i look over, and there's a 93 Chrysler Concorde coming down knickerbocker at about 50mph and BAM! it t-bones us in the middle of the intersection.
the red dot is the intersection we got t-boned at.
So i ask if everybody is ok, mainly the girls because they were sitting on the passenger side which is where we got t-boned, and everyone says yes. we start to get out and as i'm stepping out, i look over at the other car and the driver is getting out. He's an african american man, in about is early 40's i'd guess, dressed in a decent looking suit. he gets out and just yells "YO MAN, THIS IS BROOKLYN" in his thick new york accent. So i help my girlfriend get out on my side, and brett helps his sister out through his door because the other car is still pinned up against both of our passenger doors. about five seconds later, a firetruck pulled up. apparently he was already behind the man in the concorde. They make sure we're alright, and tell us to sit tight while they make sure there's nothing dangerous leaking from the cars. they then help out the rest of Mr. Brooklyns familiy out of his car, they were all dressed up and on there way to church.
Another firetruck arrives, as well as two police cars and an ambulance. The police come over and talk to us, take our licenses and go back to their car. The paramedics put Mrs. Brooklyn on a stretcher and in the ambulance and take her away. We asked the cop if she was ok and he replied "oh yeah she'll be fine, she just said her arm hurt, the neckbrace is just standard procedure". About an hour and a half later, after we've been sitting at the corner in this not so nice area, having everyone stare at us because we are the only white people around, the cops come back and give us our license, and tell us "if you can get it towed, you're free to go. if you think it's driveable you can go ahead and try, none of you guys are getting a ticket, just call this case number in tomorrow to find out what's happening with the other driver".
So I go over and look at the car, it's not that bad except our front passenger wheel has about 30 degrees of negative camber and the cars are still pinned up against each other. So I walk over to the cop and i ask him "the cars are still touching, you just want me to pull it out?" and he says "if you can get it out without tearing the other car apart go ahead, there's a body shop about two blocks down on the right if you want to try to go there. and if i were you i wouldn't let bret drive." I reply with "i already have the keys, and i don't even think the two girls will get back in the car with bret for a while, so i'll be driving."
I start driving us out of there. I go to the body shop, and they're closed. So bret gets on the phone with AAA so he can find out how long it will take to get his car towed somewhere, and he's getting the run around over and over. The girls in the back just keep saying "omg this is not a nice area" blahblahblah being typical girls, so i just keep driving trying to find a nice area to pull over and wait for the tow truck. All the while, i have to hold the wheel about 90 degrees to the right just to go straight and everytime i hit a bump it feels like the wheel is about to fall off. So i finally find a nice(r) area to pull over and I do.
The red dot is our accident, the green line is me driving around trying to find a nicer area, and the block dot is where i finally parked, in a parking lot to a park around 11:30am.
So we pull over in the parking lot, and erin and bret are freaking out about "omg we're stuck in new york what are we going to do blahblahblah" so I say "if this were me, since I make enough money, i would put my car on a car carrier back to detroit, and I would fly home tonight"
So bret is calling AAA back and forth, and Erin is calling their parents back and forth, meanwhile it's pouring rain outside the car so we're all stuck in the car, and they're trying to talk above the other person on the phone. Finally bret gets a tow-truck and they say they'll be there no later than 3pm. Erin gets a hold of her dad, and he has a cousin that lives in Long Island that can pick us up and drive us to the airport.
All this time, i'm on the phone with my parents, trying to make sure they get Amber and I a plane ticket home. My mom says she can get all four of us a hotel room for tonight, and there's a flight home on monday morning at 7:30 am with Spirit Airlines but there's only 3 seats, so i tell her "go ahead and get amber and I a flight, and erin and brets mom can deal with their flight home." So erins mom calls erin and wants my moms number, so i give it to her. Erins mom calls my mom, and is so worried about her daughter and son she says she doesn't want them to get split up from us and she'd prefer we all took the same flight and blahblahblah so my mom just gives in and puts us on a 12:10pm flight home through Delta airlines with all four of us.
AAA's tow truck driver calls bret and asks where exactly we are, because he's at the intersection and doesn't see us, and tells him we have to call AAA and tell them, because he has to take his orders through his computer, he can't just go wherever he wants. So bret calls AAA and gives them the intersection and then they say "ok the tow truck will be there no later than 4:30"
I was supposed to go to the Rock The Bells concert in New York on sunday the 29th. The plan was, my girlfriend, her best friend Erin, Erins little brother and myself drive to new york starting on saturday morning, spend the night at a hotel, go to the concert on sunday and drive home when it was over.
Day 1.(saturday morning) We start driving to new york. Pretty easy drive for the first 6 hours, as it's all turnpike and highway. We left at 8:30 am with brett driving his car. At noon, we pull over to get gas, and i take over driving. When we got into pennsylvania, there was scattered construction every so often, no big deal. I just set my cruise control for 80 and pretty much stayed in the passing lane the entire time getting over to the right in the rare occasion someone was going faster than me. We come into another section of construction and we have to move into one lane of traffic behind a semi. I'm following behind the semi about 5 or 6 car lengths back because we're only going 45-50mph. The semi runs over one of the big orange construction barrels and it shoots out of his tire infront of me and i have to swerve around it. close call but no big deal. around 5pm even though we're only about half an hour out of the city i let brett take over driving again, because i didn't sleep the night before, i pulled an all nighter so i wouldn't sleep through picking up my girlfriend and meeting up with brett and erin. So brett takes over, and we get into new york.
Our hotel is in a shitty part of brooklyn. It's not like the super ghetto, but it's definately not a nice area. So we get to the hotel, and i suggest we take the subway(which is right outside our hotel window) into manhattan and walk around the city and go shop at all the nice stores but the girls, having grown up in nice white suburbs, were too scared to even leave the hotel and i wasn't going to go by myself just because it wouldn't be any fun. so i go to sleep, because I don't want to sit in a hotel room watching t.v. all night.
The morning comes, and I woke up around 6am because i went to sleep so early, so i decide to go downstairs and get some free continental breakfast(orange juice and donuts were the only things to choose from) then i went outside to have a cigarette. I came back in and got on the hotel computer so i could write down the times every band is going on and at what stage. I go back up to the room and everyone is still asleep, so i lay down for an hour or two but couldn't fall back asleep. Everyone else wakes up, they have breakfast and we leave.
here is where our weekend turned to shit.
Day 2
sunday) we're on our way to randalls island where the concert is. we've been in the car for about 10 minutes, just following the GPS to randalls island. Brett misses the turn he's supposed to make, so the GPS remaps our route and tells us to turn onto the next one way street going the same way, a street called Cornelius. We turn onto cornelius and we're driving a couple blocks, and we come up on a street called knickerbocker. I say "knickerbocker, nice name" as we're stopped at our stop sign. The people on knickerbocker don't have a stopsign but we do. so brett looks both ways and it's clear as far as he can tell considering there's cars parked up and down knickerbocker on both sides, so his sight is limited. so he starts to inch up far enough to make sure there is nobody coming down this one way street, as he's inching up it still looks clear(from my point of view anyway, i'm in the backseat at this point) so brett hits the gas to start going through the intersection. just as he hits the gas i look over, and there's a 93 Chrysler Concorde coming down knickerbocker at about 50mph and BAM! it t-bones us in the middle of the intersection.
the red dot is the intersection we got t-boned at.
So i ask if everybody is ok, mainly the girls because they were sitting on the passenger side which is where we got t-boned, and everyone says yes. we start to get out and as i'm stepping out, i look over at the other car and the driver is getting out. He's an african american man, in about is early 40's i'd guess, dressed in a decent looking suit. he gets out and just yells "YO MAN, THIS IS BROOKLYN" in his thick new york accent. So i help my girlfriend get out on my side, and brett helps his sister out through his door because the other car is still pinned up against both of our passenger doors. about five seconds later, a firetruck pulled up. apparently he was already behind the man in the concorde. They make sure we're alright, and tell us to sit tight while they make sure there's nothing dangerous leaking from the cars. they then help out the rest of Mr. Brooklyns familiy out of his car, they were all dressed up and on there way to church.
Another firetruck arrives, as well as two police cars and an ambulance. The police come over and talk to us, take our licenses and go back to their car. The paramedics put Mrs. Brooklyn on a stretcher and in the ambulance and take her away. We asked the cop if she was ok and he replied "oh yeah she'll be fine, she just said her arm hurt, the neckbrace is just standard procedure". About an hour and a half later, after we've been sitting at the corner in this not so nice area, having everyone stare at us because we are the only white people around, the cops come back and give us our license, and tell us "if you can get it towed, you're free to go. if you think it's driveable you can go ahead and try, none of you guys are getting a ticket, just call this case number in tomorrow to find out what's happening with the other driver".
So I go over and look at the car, it's not that bad except our front passenger wheel has about 30 degrees of negative camber and the cars are still pinned up against each other. So I walk over to the cop and i ask him "the cars are still touching, you just want me to pull it out?" and he says "if you can get it out without tearing the other car apart go ahead, there's a body shop about two blocks down on the right if you want to try to go there. and if i were you i wouldn't let bret drive." I reply with "i already have the keys, and i don't even think the two girls will get back in the car with bret for a while, so i'll be driving."
I start driving us out of there. I go to the body shop, and they're closed. So bret gets on the phone with AAA so he can find out how long it will take to get his car towed somewhere, and he's getting the run around over and over. The girls in the back just keep saying "omg this is not a nice area" blahblahblah being typical girls, so i just keep driving trying to find a nice area to pull over and wait for the tow truck. All the while, i have to hold the wheel about 90 degrees to the right just to go straight and everytime i hit a bump it feels like the wheel is about to fall off. So i finally find a nice(r) area to pull over and I do.
The red dot is our accident, the green line is me driving around trying to find a nicer area, and the block dot is where i finally parked, in a parking lot to a park around 11:30am.
So we pull over in the parking lot, and erin and bret are freaking out about "omg we're stuck in new york what are we going to do blahblahblah" so I say "if this were me, since I make enough money, i would put my car on a car carrier back to detroit, and I would fly home tonight"
So bret is calling AAA back and forth, and Erin is calling their parents back and forth, meanwhile it's pouring rain outside the car so we're all stuck in the car, and they're trying to talk above the other person on the phone. Finally bret gets a tow-truck and they say they'll be there no later than 3pm. Erin gets a hold of her dad, and he has a cousin that lives in Long Island that can pick us up and drive us to the airport.
All this time, i'm on the phone with my parents, trying to make sure they get Amber and I a plane ticket home. My mom says she can get all four of us a hotel room for tonight, and there's a flight home on monday morning at 7:30 am with Spirit Airlines but there's only 3 seats, so i tell her "go ahead and get amber and I a flight, and erin and brets mom can deal with their flight home." So erins mom calls erin and wants my moms number, so i give it to her. Erins mom calls my mom, and is so worried about her daughter and son she says she doesn't want them to get split up from us and she'd prefer we all took the same flight and blahblahblah so my mom just gives in and puts us on a 12:10pm flight home through Delta airlines with all four of us.
AAA's tow truck driver calls bret and asks where exactly we are, because he's at the intersection and doesn't see us, and tells him we have to call AAA and tell them, because he has to take his orders through his computer, he can't just go wherever he wants. So bret calls AAA and gives them the intersection and then they say "ok the tow truck will be there no later than 4:30"
