O the Horror
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Artist:
This one happened fifteen or more years ago - more like twenty, come to think.Anyway, guy was coming down Monteagle Mountain on I-24 between Nashville and Chattanooga (heading toward Chattanooga, which is the worse grade and curves).You may have heard of Monteagle - Cash recorded a song about it, and Jerry Reed mentions it in the theme song for Smokey and the Bandit; several miles of 7% grades and not-straight road. With signs every so often to remind you that there's a chance rocks will fall on the roadway. (I came around a corner one day and, luckily, had time and room to dodge the rock about half the size of my Civic that was sitting in the middle of the left lane...)So, here's this guy heading down the mountain, almost all the way down.The tape in his player ends, and, fool that he is, he takes his eyes off the road to stick in another one.And he looks up and there! is! a! bigass rock! right in front of him.He swerves, misses the rock, loses control, and runs off the road, right at the bottom of the mountain. Car rolls over twice, ends up upside down.In the bushes. He's not hurt bad - broken wrist, something like that - but he's hanging upside down from his seat belt, and his good arm is jammed between his body and the door and he can't get the belt loose with his broken arm.Car's not burning or anything; engine died when it rolled, so the only danger he's in is that they might not find him till he's dead or at least in pretty bad shape.As it was, they found him about thirteen hours after the crash.So what's the horror, you ask?Remember it was changing tapes that caused the wreck?He was there for thirteen hours with a Barry Manilow tape in the auto-reverse cassette player.O the horror.
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