August 06th, 2010

Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 12

Miass-Chelyabinsk: The Crash
-Written by Michele Shapiro

We awake early to check our fluid levels. “Oh no, we left the lights on!” Another complication we didn’t need.

“Now we have to hunt for someone to jumpstart the car.” Parag gets in and turns the key. Suddenly we hear the melodious sound of the car purring to life.

“Lights on all night and she still starts!” Our (not so) little vehicle is a miracle on wheels.

We wave goodbye to our little oasis feeling relaxed and at peace. Our state of mind would soon be overturned in a rather unfortunate literal interpretation.

We begin the day by stopping off at an auto shop. The choke had become stuck and black smoke was pouring out from the tailpipe, not good. The mechanics notice the line to the choke had been caught underneath the hood that had been dented. One of the guys takes a block of wood, holds it up to the hood and smashes the hammer hard against the block knocking out the dent.

“This is how you fix a car, Russian style!” I note.

Parag starts out at the wheel with Mikahil co-driving and I am in the back typing out the previous day’s journal entry. Our plan is to drive our longest distance yet, nearly 800 kilometers. Spirits are high, momentum is strong, we’re ready to go.

After about 250 kilometers we decide to stop at a roadside café for lunch. The boys order beef stroganoff but I can’t seem to find anything on the menu and simply settle for an ice cream bar.

After lunch Parag is in a food coma and I prepare to take over the wheel.

“You know, I think I’m ready to take a go at it,” Mikhail says. He has been recovering from a fractured bone in this right foot, and the doctor finally let him drive two days ago.  Also, he has only driven a manual car for 3 one-hour lessons and the injury had prevented him from practicing during the rally’s first days.

“You sure? I’m happy to drive.” But he insists he was going to have to take the wheel sooner or later. He drives it around the parking lot a few times while I explain how to smoothly transfer from letting off the clutch and pressing on the throttle.

“More gas, more gas!” Parag screams from the back. It is a bit rough but he pretty much has the hang of it. We don’t have any time to spare; we need to get on the road.

“Whoa, this thing keeps sliding.” Unlike a modern car our vehicle liked to surf a bit. You need to move with the wheel, your hands moving like you’re pretending you’re driving in some old time movie. It’s virtually impossible to drive without having two hands on the wheel.

This was not a nice relaxing day drive, you need to be alert and control the car at all times. To make matters worse the roads were in terrible condition with bumps, grooves, holes, livestock, and the like littering the lanes.

Mikhail tries some passes and I hold my breath, but they go smoothly. I sit back in the co-drivers seat, hang my left arm out the window to feel the cooler air, and think about getting some miles past us so we can enjoy Lake Baikal. Baikal is supposed to be one of the most beautiful natural spaces in the world and we had budgeted extra days to spend on its shores relaxing.

Mikhail decides to pass a huge semi-truck and although it’s a bit on the close side, we have enough room. He hits the accelerator and we begin to pass the truck with the car in the left lane heading straight for us.

The car hits a bump that throws it to the left and suddenly our left tires go off the pavement and hit gravel. Immediately when the tires touch the gravel they lose all grip and the car begins swerving left and right out of control.

Mikhail tries to recover the car but it isn’t working and our options are limited. The semi truck is travelling next to us on the right side and we are driving, now out of control, in the left lane with a car heading straight for us.

The car is still swerving right and left and suddenly I feel it lean slightly to the left. In all my training with cars there are a few rules that drivers, no matter how seasoned, mention over and over again. I now realize they mention it over and over because in these moments you have a fraction of a second to make a decision.

Cross arms! Cross arms! I take my left arm from out the window and fold both arms like I’m hugging myself.

When you roll a car the force will cause your hands to fly every which way so you’re supposed to cross your arms to keep them from moving around. It was a decision I’m likely never to forget.

What happens to the team after the crash? Click Read More to find out…

In a way that seemed impossibly both slow and quick, the car falls on the left side. I hear a bang and then the metal scraping against the gravel as the car travels a bit before coming to a stop.

Mikhail is still belted and hanging above me. He starts to unbuckle and I caution him he’s hanging in the air. He braces himself, unbuckles and crawls out the front since the windshield had popped clean out.

My arms are still folded and my upper arm is flush against gravel because my window had been wide open. Anything that was outside the window would now be gone. I slowly unbuckle myself and crawl out the same way.

We both move quickly to the back where Parag is sitting; he’s ok. The three of us just stand there in shock looking at our overturned vehicle lying on its side.

“She looks so small,” says Parag. Sadness overcomes us as we look at our vehicle and wonder if our trip is over.

We look each other over. Parag has two scrapes on his arm and says his side hurts a bit and I have some minor cuts on my left hand and upper arm. We are all perfectly fine. The reality hits us and we quickly move from being sad to being immensely grateful.

“Wow, we are so lucky!” I say taking a deep breath.

“All I could think about was ‘avoid he truck’” Mikhail breathes out.

I grab my medical kit from the back and begin cleaning off Parag’s cuts and then my own.

“I think I jinxed us,” says Parag. “I was packing this morning and told myself I could put my medical kit at the bottom of my bag because there’s no way I’d need it.”

Two policemen arrive. They clearly don’t know what to do or who to call. It seems as if we’re an unwanted distraction preventing them from the easy money of bribes from tourist’s cars. Amazingly, several cars pull over to see if we’re ok and to ask if they can help.

The police manage to flag down a trucker to help us right the car. They stop all traffic and the trucker pulls to the right side and positions his truck in front of the vehicle. It takes three attempts but finally they pull our vehicle to its feet.

It’s leaking fluids and doesn’t start and the trucker agrees to tow us to the next service station. Mikhail jumps in the back, Parag gets on the drivers side and I jump back in the co-drivers seat. It’s odd to be on the road with the wind streaming through the absent windshield.
It’s only a few miles to the next service station. We get in and all the mechanics rush over to view the wounded vehicle. Mikhail quickly begins calling for tow-trucks from the nearest city, Chelyabinsk.

“Got one, it’ll be an hour and a half.”

There’s a café next door and I hobble over and begin to watch a Russian soap opera playing on the television. We each retreat into our own world.

Parag sits in a side room off the café and plays with his phone, which is cracked, and deals with the fact that his computer—which was a birthday present from his wife—was the one casualty in the crash. The computer held a story he had due the next day, much of his work, all the photos from the trip that he had downloaded on to his computer and all the journal posts I had carefully crafted in the back of the vehicle.

Mikhail stays outside and makes calls to Land Rover Chelyabinsk. His blackberry was smashed and pinned between the car body and asphalt – amazingly it sort of still worked.  In an odd twist, a team of Brits driving the same Land Rover ambulance as us had broken down nearby and was also headed to Land Rover Chelyabinsk.

I sip on sparkling water that arrived with slivers of ice inside; a welcome treat given the extreme heat. I focus on the Russian soap opera and make up my own story lines trying to oust the incoming thoughts of what might have happened and that our journey might now be over.

The tow truck arrives and we load the vehicle on. We all climb in next to our young truck driver, Dima, and the four of us sit up front together.

“Here we have our truck driver savior, Dima.” I say to the video camera. Dima gives a little smile to the camera.

An hour and a half later we arrive at Land Rover Chelyabinsk. We unload the car and then ask one of the guys about calling a taxi. His name is Dmitry and it turns out he is one of the service mechanics. He very kindly offers to drive us to the hotel.

It’s a steel town and it looks as if the city has taken on the characteristics of its major import. The city has a gray hue and we pass one enormous concrete building after the next. We stay in the nicest hotel in town and sure enough our room is the nicest one we’ve had yet, complete with an enormous oversized tub that I have to hoist myself up into.

We go down to the restaurant and we’re the only patrons there. I try to order plain grilled chicken with fried potatoes. The waitress comes out and says the chef is concerned that plain chicken might be too dry and asks my permission to add sauce. The plate comes to me and with cubes of chicken sautéed in a light cream and mushroom sauce and potatoes sautéed with onions. It is the best meal I’ve had in a very long time.

We head back to the room which had one single bed and two single cots. I throw myself on one of the cots. Every night since I’ve been here I have had difficulty sleeping and only slept a few hours each night. Tonight the three of us pass out immediately.