The other day I got to reminiscing about my radio days. Yep, that's right; I used to be a radio announcer. Shock Jock! I've never written of it, or the horrifying events of the time, and spoken very little. The radio work was nothing major, just held up a show on a couple of community radio stations. For those not in the know, working at a community radio station generally means that rather than them paying you for your talents, you pay a yearly "membership fee" to work there voluntarily.
It feels now like a lifetime ago. Before marriage and kids, the business... before being who I've now grown to be, really. And it's not like the radio gig ever helped me out, or showed any prospects for a future in the media. Instead, it was my time in radio that resulted in almost losing my life in a terrible car accident, at just 20 years of age.
It was 2001 in Redland Bay, Queensland, on a community radio station called Bay FM. I had been doing the Sunday night graveyard shift, midnight to dawn, with a middle-aged friend named Allan for about four or five months. It was often arduous, not least because I was working a full-time job at the time. (I'd finish up the six hour radio gig at 6am, go home for some breakfast, then toddle off to Brisbane for my paid day job.) But I loved every minute of it. Besides writing the Winchester Series, radio had always been one of my dream careers. I had already done work-experience at a commercial station, completed a private on-air media course and helped out at various OBs (Outside Broadcasts) for a couple of stations.
So when our chance came up to do a show of our very own, Allan and I jumped at it. Even if it was the graveyard shift. It eventually came at a cost, however. Over our time on-air, Allen and his fiancée had bought a house in the country and were commuting to Brisbane. I had bought my first car and got my driver's license. Stress was getting a bit much at the factory where I worked—multiple shifts back-to-back, one day off in three weeks, mongrel management—and Allan kept offering me to come up and stay at their new place for a holiday. I couldn't get any time off work, though, because the boss was a narcissistic prick, intent on running his staff into the ground. (No different from any other boss, really. Hehehe)
Anyway, I remember it like it was yesterday. For a bloke that for most of his teen-hood had gone about suppressing emotion, (I had convinced myself I was a robot, or maybe Vulcan, as a coping thing. That's another story!) it was a new experience for me to be "feeling" so stressed and generally crap. That Friday afternoon, I snuck into the boss's office and placed a note on his desk which said something to the effect of:
You have been working us too hard, sir. If I don't do this I am going to crash. As of this afternoon, I am on 2 weeks break. Fire me if you want. Otherwise, see you in a fortnight. -Damien.
Then I drove to the beach at Victoria Point, sat on the bonnet of my car and watched the sunset illuminate the islands across the water, while eating fish-n-chips and contemplating what I was going to do. Looking back now, it is obvious to me that it was a corner in the path of my life. But you know, even then at the time I think I knew it. It's only once in a blue moon you get to stand back and take a look from outside yourself, standing there on that forked-path deciding which direction to take.
For an outsider, unless you have been in a similar situation yourself, the scene I describe doesn't seem too big. However for me it really was, and still is, a massive life changing moment. There was no going back, only forward. Looking back now, everything I knew was to change after that day. I rang Allan on my mobile brick (Nokia 5110; best constructed mobile phone known to man) and told him I was coming to visit.
He said, "What? Now? It'll be 10 o'clock by the time you get here."
"I know, Allan. But I can't wait. I have to get out of here now."
"Ok then. I'll keep an eye out for you. Drive safe."
And I did. I got there by paper map, 3.5 hours out of Brisbane, in the dark at 9:45pm. The next morning I woke up to the sounds of strange birds chirping, wild kangaroos and wallabies bounding outside my window. The smell of bush and the company of friends. I could feel the life-force re-filling me. I spent a relaxing week far away from the world I had stagnated in, and felt new and refreshed.
The following weekend we went down to Redland Bay in separate cars to do our radio show. I decided to swing past home the next morning and grab some things, seeing as I had left on a whim with practically nothing the week before. On our way back up the mountains, around 9am October 22nd 2001, we both pulled over for breakfast at a small café. We all felt fine and fit, so off we went again. I followed Allan about ten kilometres past Cunninghams Gap, then fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road. I rolled in the ditch, end over end, at a hundred Ks an hour, the car coming to a rest about fifty metres from the highway, crushed and upside down in a paddock.
I remember only snippets. The sensation of the car rolling, being flung half out of my seat belt. Glass, everywhere. And the sounds. I'll never forget the sounds. I have never known if I was unconscious for any length of time, but I do remember coming-to with my head pressed against the roof, fragments of glass cutting through my hair. I was bleeding badly from my forehead. I grabbed a floor mat and pressed it to my head, got untangled from the seat-belt and crawled out through the window.
Now I know why I've never written about this; I'm having trouble keeping it together. Just taking a minute...
Ok, I'm back. Sorry about that. Anyway, I remember I couldn't actually see because of the blood in my eyes, so I don't know how far away from the wreckage I had managed to get myself. But I heard several voices of people running up from the highway, one of which was a woman that I'll never, ever forget.
"Oh my God! He's alive. Someone ring the ambulance? Hey, hey, are you ok?"
She rested my head on her knees; I never saw her, only heard her voice. She kept me together until the ambulance arrived, asking me questions to make sure I hadn't lost it or gone into shock. I was fully lucid, and could recall my name, family names, addresses etc. To this day I regret never getting her name or finding out who she was. Maybe she was my guardian angel, I don't know. I didn't even get to thank her for being there for me. (If by some freaky twist of fate you are reading this ma'am, I am forever grateful. Please get in contact so I can tell you in person.)
Only memory of the ambulance is the rough suspension, nice paramedics and the FLIES!!! Bloody hell I must have been covered in the little buggers. I still can't stand a fly on my face; it just sends me right back there! Strangely enough, there was little in the way of pain. It's been like that with most major traumas in my life actually. Small cut or scratch and it'll sting like anything, slice a half-inch into my big toe with a sheet of glass and I barely feel it. Maybe you're like that too... or perhaps I'm just a freak. No idea. I'm pretty sure my head throbbed, but honestly there was no real pain to speak of. The ambos still made me suck on their darn pain-relief thingo, though, which delivered some sort of dry powder medication. Every breath of it made me cough, which DID hurt everything!
Would you believe, though, despite the horrendous conditions of that accident and the clear odds that I should have died, I walked out of that hospital on the same day. Still can't believe that. I saw photos of my car, a twisted crumple of metal. If I'd had a passenger, they'd have been killed by decapitation as the passenger-side roof sheered away from the frame, and there was so much flying debris from my possessions flinging loose from the back seat, that it's simply impossible that I survived intact.
Yet here I am twelve and a half years later, writing this out for the first time with goose-bumps and cloudy eyes. Husband, father to four, and in a business that helps people everyday. I'm not religious, but damn if that ain't some sort of miracle. The only scar with me today is one across my right shoulder, where I had two surgeries in the following years to re-attach my clavicle, but that's a story for another day.
And you know the one thing that really has stayed with me, and what I'd like to think outlines my core values as a person now? I asked that lovely lady something at the accident scene. Lying in a paddock on a strangers lap, bleeding from the head, surrounded by the wreckage of my car and not knowing how badly I was injured or whether I was going to live, the first thing I asked was, "Did I hurt anyone else? Please say I didn't hit anyone else." Thankfully, I hadn't.
Now, I'm not saying that as if to be all high and mighty on myself. Honestly, I sort of find it difficult to correlate myself with myself, if you know what I mean. The whole incident was so unworldly that I feel like it was another person that had the accident, I'm just seeing his memories. But it was me, and my primary thought, as a 20 yr old boy involved in a horrific car crash from which I should be dead, is for someone else. That's a moral to live by, and young Damien taught it to me. I'm so proud of that kid. He had no idea of what lay before him at that point, but someone or something had a hand in him coming out of that accident alive. Maybe, just maybe, an innate sense of caring for others had something to do with it.
That's the motto I still live by now. I've used it to guide the way I interact with others, and how I run my business. With any luck, my little light is making way for a better world. Shine yours with me, will ya!
Thanks so much for reading. It means a lot.
Till next time,
-Damien.
