Five minutes later... canal... my car... water... inside.

Today, I had a lease to sign (I do oil & gas title work) in Fourchon, LA. As a young boy, my family owned a resort camp in the area, which Katrina ended up blowing away. After I talked to the land owner, I headed towards Grand Isle (Gulf of Mexico barrier island on the extreme Southern tip of Louisiana) to check out how things look, two & a half years later.

I drove to the marina at the end of the island to have a look around, & as I parked, I thought, "Hey this looks like a pretty nice area to get pictures." I snapped a few shots, & then decided to get back on the road & head home.

After leaving the marina, the road has a fairly sharp curve to the right & a long straight away. The posted advisory speed for the curve is 30mph. In the bend of the curve, there's a gravel road that leads to some campgrounds. As cars had exited, the pieces of gravel had built up in the middle of the road on the center line. I entered the curve at the afforementioned 30mphd, & as I was coming to the curve's exit, an egret or some sort of wading bird was walking across the road from the shoulder.

Out of instinct, I swerved to the right to avoid the guy, but my rear driver's side wheel caught the gravel & kicked the car completely around.

I'm not really sure what happened next, except that I remember thinking, "Oh ****, I'm going in the water." My next real memory was climbing over the center console & out my passenger side window as my car was filling with water. The water ended up levelling off at about the level of the door armrests.

My camera, ipod, & phone were ruined. I'm not sure about anything else in the car. I got the camera out as quickly as I could, but it was already flooded & I couldn't get pictures of the accident scene. At least the memory card still worked.

A person was exiting the state park & saw the whole thing & called the police & let me borrow their jacket to warm. I wasn't issued a ticket, luckily.

The car was towed to a dealership about an hour away. I find out Monday or Tuesday whether it'll be totalled out. I'm going to fight like hell to keep that from happening-- I was already planning to buy a new motor anyway. I have full coverage, so hopefully everything will be good as new, soon.

I looked at the car in the yard & there didn't seem to be any body damage, aside from a sideskirt being pulled off & the bumper being somewhat bent up (which may be fixable). I'll probably need new headlights & definitely new fogs-- I imagine all the wiring is shot, too.

I'll keep everyone posted as to what happens. I've never been in an accident before-- I'm a very cautious driver. I ask you all to please be careful out there, as there's really no telling what can happen.

I was not hurt at all, other than being wet. Lucky for me, I suppose.

Out of respect to me, I ask that no one ask for parts off the car. I'll decide what'll happen once I hear from my insurance company.

All gone. The car has been declared a total loss. I'm hoping to let the car be towed to a salvage yard & then buy it back & then pull parts off & sell as I can.

I still cannot believe this happened.

pics from Monday:

My friend Ron, a fellow hatcher, was nice enough to come with me to help pull pieces. You can see the water line midway up the body.



There was a mother****ing fish swimming in my spare tire well.