When I was 4 and my brother was 2, my Mom told us all (my sister was 6 or 7) to go out and get in the BACKSEAT of the car-old 70-something automatic. My sister and I obeyed, my brother didn't. He was playing with the steering wheel and gearshift lever, and pulled the car out of park. It was on a mostly level part of the driveway, but it started drifting backwards. It was picking up speed, and the driveway curved not far below where we were sitting. It would have gone down a pretty steep hill, across a road, through some trees, and ended up in a creek. I wasn't waiting for that to happen, and I jumped out. The open car door knocked me down, right under the car. The car started at my shoulder and left black-and-blue tire marks from my shoulder all the way down my body. Mom saw it happen and came running, but there wasn't anything she could do. My sister was smarter than I-she got in the front seat, and turned the wheel the other way so the car would be going uphill. I went to the doctor immediately for X-rays (I had nothing broken, thank God), and the doctor told Mom I would probably have nightmares-I didn't, but she did!
I only realized recently how hard that must have been on my Mom to see-when she was 19, her mother was killed by the family car running backwards over her while she was getting something out of the trunk.
I only realized recently how hard that must have been on my Mom to see-when she was 19, her mother was killed by the family car running backwards over her while she was getting something out of the trunk.
