The Worst I’ve Seen in Life is Rain
Michael Pezzimenti
You wouldn’t know it if you saw me. I walk among you every day and stop to talk with you, then run off, uphill, to get to class on time. If you knew me before and hadn’t been told why I was away for a year, you wouldn’t notice a change in my physical behavior. You can’t tell by looking at me because I’m huge. Being huge is kind of my motto now. I’m not a big guy, I’m just huge in the sense that I don’t allow myself the comfort of a limp.
My body has been broken. I had never broken a bone until that day, but all at once I broke my pelvis in three places, a vertebra in my mid-lower spine and four or so ribs. In the process, my spleen was, in the words of one doctor, “torn in half.”
My name is Michael. I was named after my maternal grandfather’s baby brother, the only child of a large family to be born in a hospital, whose umbilical cord was tied incorrectly and died prematurely. About nine months after my cherished grandfather’s passing, while wearing his t-shirt, my lightweight, decade-old Nissan pickup with bald tires, hydroplaned into a spin on Highway 101, just south of Willits, California. Gliding on residue of fresh rain, it careened through the guardrail without hesitation. The truck plummeted 40 feet before it bounced on mountainside and began to tumble, end over end, another 200 feet. The distance of the drop and roll are accurate, as they were given to me by a police officer via hospital telephone about two weeks or so after the accident.
Vividly, in frame-by-frame playback, I remember the truck repeatedly colliding with the ground, rolling in mid-air, then crashing down on a different side before becoming airborne again. I was aware enough, as my feet rotated over my head, to attempt to feel-out when, and on which side of the truck, each impact would occur. The driver’s side seatbelt was broken and I had my belt clicked into the passenger’s buckle, which, surprisingly, helped by allowing me room to reposition myself as I tried desperately to sway my body with each bounce in an attempt to lessen the trauma on my inflexible bones. I was unaware, at this point, how bad it already was. I kept thinking the truck would hit a tree and that I would be crushed by twisted metal and left undiscovered until it was too late.
The truck gained speed as it somersaulted down the steep mountainside with me inside, trapped like an egg in a falling carton trying not to break. I used to tell people that I remained conscious the whole time, but when I piece it together, my left-upper forehead was red and swollen where it seems very plausible that I might have taken out the driver’s side window with a head butt upon the initial impact of the free-fall. I don’t recall the exact moment of impact. I believe the 40-foot drop caused all of my serious injuries, and only endorphins and adrenalin enabled me to consciously and acrobatically avoid dislocation, dismemberment and death throughout the remainder of the descent.
I had time to think during the extended barrel roll ride, and I contemplated what my last words on Earth should be. I thought of my family, on both my mother’s and my father’s side, and screamed that I loved them. I envisioned each member of my beloved family, recalling their faces as clearly as I could. I decided to yell out my last name. “Pezzimenti!” I am very proud of my name and everyone and everything for which it stands. Literally translated in Italian, Pezzimenti means “pieces minds,” but I like to take it figuratively and say that it means “piece of mind.” In Hebrew, my first name, Michael, means “who is like God,” or one might say, “God-like.” Therefore, I am Michael Pezzimenti, “God-like Piece of Mind.” I am huge!
When the battered pickup stopped moving, my legs were tangled above my head as I lay across the bench seat of the truck’s cab. I could hear a male voice screaming from the freeway, “don’t move, don’t move!” I looked up to see ground through what happened to be the, now windowless, passenger door. I was upside down. Looking back down at my knotted legs above me, I poked them to make sure I wasn’t paralyzed, my worst fear in life. I was relieved to feel the pressure of my pokes, and decided not to remain a pretzel inside my mangled vehicle. As I reoriented myself, I realized that the seatbelt, still firmly attached to the wrong buckle, was the only thing holding me from falling out of the truck. Freeing myself with the click of a button, I fell through the passenger window onto sturdy ground. I landed mostly on my shoulder, which would later need multiple layers of stitches, though I’m not sure that the damage was completely due to my disheveled dismount.ALL PHOTOS FOR THIS STORY COURTESTY OF Michael Pezzimenti
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Humboldt State University- Arcata, CA 95521