Yes...adrenaline will do that.
Some forty odd years ago, I was driving my old MG Midget on a two lane road, separated by a guard rail from two lanes going the other way.
I was doing about 50 mph, I came over the top of a hill, and on the downside of the hill in front of me, there was a stop light with backed up traffic. I jammed on my brakes, but...there are times when you are in that situation, and you know it’s hopeless.
You’re not stopping.
You know there just isn’t enough physical space to stop. You almost FEEL it rather than know it, and it is an odd feeling. You know you aren’t getting out of it.
At that point, everything slowed down for me, and that is what I see in my mind’s eye today.
On the left, the stanchions of the guard rail were passing by me in slow motion, a deliberate and steady whoosh...whoosh...whoosh...whoosh (they didn’t make that noise, but that is how my mind perceived it.
In a completely slowed down mode, my eyes looked to the right and my brain asked in a nearly conversational tone “Can I go to the right?”
But no. There was a car stopped there too.
And as my mind switched to the left, there was a raised concrete pad that the guardrail was cemented into, and my mind, with no input from me saying “Yes” or anything, just steered that little car up over the shallow curb onto the pad, and I came to a stop at the very end with the first car stopped there on the right.
Some guy in a white sedan. His eyes were as big as dinner plates and his face was white too, and he rolled down his window and said “Are you okay?”
I was.
Not a scratch on the car, either. But I could not have had more than six inches between my driver side door and the guard rail. It was that tight. When traffic passed I pulled out and went on my way.
But the thing I remember is, when that bolus of adrenaline was injected straight into my blood, was the slow motion whoosh...whoosh...whoosh of those guardrails going by.
Went I went over the curb, it was as if the shock of the impact in that small car just jolted everything into real time in a single heartbeat. But from the moment I slammed on the brakes and got that sickening feeling to the point I hit the curb, that was visually what has stayed in my brain all these years.
It’s amazing what you mind can record in detail you’d never expect it to have the ability to notice in a traumatic situation.
Glad that worked out for you.
It’s great when God watches out for us and protects us from ourselves, whether it’s simple carelessness from not paying attention, or just downright youthful stupidity, or out and out intent to do evil.