When my son was about 3, my car popped a tyre on the motorway. I did a full 180 spin, went from the outside lane, to being backwards on the inside lane right in front of the van I was overtaking. I just took my hands and feet off everything and prayed, I could see the van driver screaming.
The car continued spinning, and I came off the motorway backwards, down an embankment and ended up in a farmers field, parallel to the road. I missed two trees and a huge boulder, but the car was torn up from smashing through the fence. I got out and the van driver was running down the embankment.
He called the ambulance and police for me, and they checked me over, not a scratch. Recovery van took me back home, where my husband and son were at home. It was early in the morning still, so as a pick-me-up for the shock my husband drove us out to mcdonalds for some breakfast. As we were about halfway between our house and mcdonalds, my son shouted BYE GWAN-MA which is what he called my nan, who had died almost one year earlier.
I said, 'what do you mean, why are you saying 'bye' to Grandma?' and he said 'she was here because you needed her, but she's gone now' and even to this day that sends shivers down my spine. The police said they had never seen the driver walk away when the car was in as bad a state as mine. I shouldn't have walked away from it, she was definitely with me that day, as she has been during other traumatic occasions since.