Chapter 1:
Our car seemed to be rooted to the spot. No matter how hard we accelerated, it did not seem to be willing to budge. The deep smell of burning rubbers hit our noses, and we knew something was terribly wrong. I opened the car door only to realize the door was marginally scrapping across a sheet of ice.
Looking back at that incident not so long ago, I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite books, "Shantaram", which goes like " Best qualities called up quickly in a crisis are often hardest to find in prosperous calm". And now I truly understand what the author meant. I was a live spectator to these very qualities emerging around me, in my friends, in the few unnamed faces that helped me get back from where I can write this, and probably in me too.
Looking even further back, where this story actually starts, it was supposed to be an usual thanksgiving break.I had planned to originally join the group of friends going to LA,obviously because its LA. I had uncomfortably declined coming to Houghton,Michigan, assuming that that place would not be very different from Minneapolis, my current location, in spite of a huge number of friends there. But the LA plan got canceled, due to the usual reasons why a plan gets canceled, and those people decided to go to Milwaukee in Wisconsin. Pondering over how uninteresting Milwaukee would be, I changed my mind to again go to Houghton, expecting to at least catch up with a lot of friends. Karthikk enthusiastically pitched in, and we decided to drive to Houghton, to which would be an amazing road trip.
The Houghton trip had all I could ask from a place. Right from awesome natural beauty, to a small town homely and simple feel, Houghton had everything.Seriously, I do not know why I even thought it would be the same as Minneapolis.It is always refreshing to be in a place where you feel really invited and wanted, and at the same time ,at home too. The road trip was amazing, going via Duluth,and stopping by some time at the Moose lake. We hit upon a mini snow storm on our way to Houghton, and it was Karthikk who was driving then. I must say he drove really well, for a visibility of two car lengths ahead.
Judging by the severe weather conditions, and by the fact that we managed to gain an hour in that weather, it gave a huge boost in our confidence about our driving skills.This also resulted in we driving with a total of nine people in our Jeep once for a night drive. We thought we can pretty much drive anywhere. Anywhere was exactly where we were a few days later, in a place we never imagined we would be.
Reluctantly on our way back to Minneapolis, after extending our departure time to include lunch, then extending it further to include dinner too, we finally left for Minneapolis at around 10 pm. We came upon Highway 26. Came across an intersection, Baltic and Trimountain Avenue, from where the GPS told us to take a right. We obeyed. We continued on the road the GPS told us. After a slight left, we again continued, looking at the GPS for directions. The road lights seem to have vanished, and the road itself suddenly started looking a bit ill plowed. We did not remember coming across such a road on our way into Houghton. But we argued that it was snowing hard when we came. The visibility was low. It would be hard to recognize a road in these conditions even if it was the one we had seen before. To add to our confidence that we were on the right track, we saw other tire marks, possibly made by other cars some time ago. We could also see a typical highway sign somewhere ahead. Hence we thought that this must be a small patch of bad road , which would get over soon. And then we also had a pretty powerful vehicle...a 4 wheel drive Jeep Patriot!
So we went ahead, doubting not even a bit about what was lying ahead for us. After some distance into that road, we felt some resistance to the car. It was quite a resistance considering we had a Jeep! That is when we realized we were on a bit of an incline. We could not move ahead because of a thick layer of snow, on the incline. There were no lights anywhere on that road, so we were just trying to map mentally where we were. Finally we decided to turn back to the point where this bad road started.I tried the reverse gear, hoping that at least that should work, it being a stronger gear. It did not work exactly as I hoped it would. The car, while coming down the incline, also turned and skid towards right. This was our first scare. But it was not bad. I was confident about the control on the car, and pretty confident that this would not topple over or something. So , decreasing the reverse acceleration just to be safe, I slowly got the car to face backwards from the way we were stuck initially. Pretty sure that all was well, and we have nothing to worry about, I started slowly on the way back down to the good road.
I must have gone 10 meters or so.I must have been at the bottom of the small incline that I had originally got stuck on .I started moving even further. The car didn't move.Our car seemed to be rooted to the spot. No matter how hard we accelerated, it did not seem to be willing to budge. The deep smell of burning rubbers hit our noses, and we knew something was terribly wrong. I opened the car door only to realize the door was marginally scrapping across a sheet of ice.
This was a "what the heck,f@#k" moment .I looked at Karthikk and he understood something was amiss. We both got out of the car,slowly opening the doors. Again, we tried to see where we were .We just had the car headlights to assist us.We walked a few steps here and there.That is when we saw there was ice beneath us.That is when we saw that that ice was very slightly giving away with our weight. The further I walked, the deeper my feet went into the snow-ice mixture there. The same thought must have crossed both our minds . Were we in a lake? Had we accidentally drove into a lake?A frozen lake? Seriously? This was a "f#$k f#$k f#$k " moment which lasted for about 30 seconds. This realization that we might be on a frozen lake scared the hell out of me. A plethora of thoughts crossed across my mind in that same microsecond .
Are we safe? Is this ice giving away?Am I going to die? Will we get the car out?Will we reach Minneapolis on time? Who's going to get the car out.?Is the car sinking? Should I call my family?Whom should I call? Do I have enough battery?
Panic struck for those 30 seconds. But after that, till the next day night when we finally did reach Minneapolis, it was a series of planned disciplined moves that got us out. I checked the mobile signal.It was there. Thank God. The nearest and first help was Soumya. After taking one more look at the car, I called up Soumya. The first thing I told him was to not panic and that we were safe, and that I had to tell about an accident. He realized from my forced calm tone that things were bad. I described him what happened and told him to start searching for us in his car straight away. We still saw the highway sign up and ahead of us. We informed Soumya that that road was probably highway 26, and he should start looking for us on that highway once he reached the intersection we had hit upon, and that we would walk to that road till then.
We saw that we were in some kind of a bowl. And our car was stuck at the base of the bowl. The highway road was atop , on the rim of the bowl, a couple of floors high above us. We had to get our stuff out of the car. We slowly walked towards the car.Took our laptop bags on our backs, and got the car papers safely into them. Karthikk went in slowly into the car and threw our other luggage towards me. All this while , we had moved a couple of feet to the right of the car, where we were confident we were on land, after looking at a small tree offshoot coming out of the snow! This was where Karthikk was handing me out the luggage. After taking all that we would "need", we threw all our other luggage there, on the incline. We took the car keys, shut the car light and moved away from the car as fast as possible. In this hurry , we forgot to close the car doors. I did not want any of us to go back near the car ,fearing if we were indeed on a lake . We had by then realized, it cannot be really a lake , in terms of size. It was more of a pond.
We walked slowly up the side of the bowl towards the highway. I was using my cell phone light as a guiding light in that dark. Karthikk was reluctant to do that, fearing animals. It turned out later that his fear was right, because that place was actually a wild life reserve. !We climbed on the highway , and then towards some pole light, so that Soumya can find us. Till this time, we had already called him a couple of times to inform about various things. I was trying to call Enterprise car rental's roadside assistance. I had the car papers with me. I got through them, and after the typical customer care call frustration, they finally managed to send me a local towing service.
Soumya , Shantanu and Madhura had by now found us, and Karthikk was showing them the accident site, a top view , from the rim of the bowl and explaining them what happened. I was still on call with the roadside assistance. Even in this panic, Soumya and friends , managed to get us two cups of hot coffee, assuming our feet would be in bad shape by now, and we would need something hot to bounce back. Extremely thoughtful.
We waited at a nearby gas station for the towing guy to come along. He came , and even before we could describe fully what happened, he asked"Was it the GPS?" and nodded in a knowing way and exclaimed .."When are they going to fix that!" . He was referring to the fact that, the road we had gone into was the old highway 26, which was shut off since last five years, but for some reason, never updated on the GPS!!. The new highway 26 was the top road, from where we had come out of the bowl. The GPS still routed people through the old road.Many more cars had gotten stuck there before, but probably, not in a situation as bad as ours.And because it was an old unused road, it was not plowed. The site where we got stuck, had snow all around. There was no bearing where the road was, and where the pond was. It was just barren , uneven and white everywhere. Probably, on a bright summer day, we could have realized that the GPS was wrong. But not that day.Beat that!
I went in his tow truck towards the accident site, while others followed in Soumya's car. After just about a quarter mile into the bad road, the tow guy stopped and declared that he wont go ahead than that. When asked , he said he would not be risking his heavy vehicle into the un-plowed road. His vehicle weighed 18000 pounds. He said he was able and authorized to tow out only those vehicles which were about 100 feet from a plowed road. This was clearly not the case with us. Our Jeep lay at least a quarter mile more ahead. We requested him to take a look at the Jeep from the top , from the point where we were found. We all went there, and he tried to get a look at the situation with his flashlight. He laughed, and then apologized for laughing. He said this was way out of his league. We would need specialized equipment. This was a "off-road" case, and what we needed was not towing, but extraction. And then he left for another call, as if people were getting stuck in snow in that area every minute.!
It was already around 1 in the morning. We left for home,back to Houghton trying to make sense how the accident would have happened, or if we were really in a lake or not. Everyone else in the house was obviously awake. We informed the campus police immediately about the proceedings, who then informed me that they would have to notify 911, so that no one else tows our car away. Fine. Finally the 911 got involved.! There were many loose ends to tie up now and a million things to take care of. I again got on calling roadside assistance and tried to get in touch with Enterprise. Meanwhile, Vikram was helping Karthikk find an alternative flight in cheapest possible deal.It was evident we were not making to Minneapolis on time. The question remained, how much time more? We were not even sure of the next to next day morning. Everyone tried to create a lighter atmosphere , just to increase the cumulative hope ,maybe. But unless one is in such a situation, one wouldn't realize how much those lighthearted humorous talks help to lift our spirits .
Getting some sleep was important. Finally, after tentatively planning the moves for next day, we all retired. Soumya and Shantanu had an important meeting next day with their advisor. Soumya had some important pending work regarding his thesis proposal defense. They had already extended their holidays because of us, and now, this was taking their precious time away. But still , none of them complained.
Around 5 in the morning, I got a call from some guy , I heard his name as Waya. He said he was from the same towing service which had come to assist me earlier, but could not help because of lack of specialised equipment. He asked me if I had got my Jeep out. At 5 in the morning, I thought that was a rhetoric question. He said he had done similar extractions before , and he would be able to help me, and that he was the cheapest in town. Wow, he could say that on that call!. I told him I would get back to him, because I would need to talk to Enterprise first. It was their car, and I was assuming the insurance would be paying to get the car out. So let Enterprise handle it their own way.
I called Enterprise Car Rental at exactly when their office opened. I explained them what happened. And then started discussing about my options. I asked them about insurance.Thats when they dropped their bombshell. They said the insurance did not cover the accident. This was one more "what the heck" moment. I asked them to explain. And then I fought. They said that this was a "off-road" case. The insurance covers only on-road cases. They claimed this was my fault that I drove into water. I tried to desparately explain that this was the GPS problem. And this had happened before on that road with others too. I had no control over what happened. It was not my fault at all. I had simply obeyed the GPS.! I tried to bargain some cost, but they would not relent. I argued and argued a lot. Finally they said they could not gaurantee if they would help, but I was responsible for the car, and I should first get it out.
I was surprised that they did not even try to send me professional help. I was already calculating the money required to get that car out. That too out of our pocket seemed to be mind boggling. I called up Waya and told him he was on. He came in half an hour and took me to the site to survey it. We tried to reach our car through 3 different roads. No use. Finally we parked on the top highway and walked down to the car. Waya seemed to be an honest person. He said he would look at the car, and if it is possible to easily get it out, he would even do it for free. I was relieved even to hear him say that.
We reached the car , and I gave the keys to Waya. He told me to stand away , while he entered the car and tried to budge it. He did some checks, and came out. He looked at me and said.."Ok, this is really bad. I am going to require 3 different kinds of truck to get this thing out. I will also need to notify the 911, because you car has broken through ice, and this is an accident. I think I will drop you back, as there is no use you staying here in this cold.".I told him to go ahead with the car extraction. With his help, we took the bags that we had thrown away on the incline last night, and came back to our house.
We came back, and pretty much prayed and hoped for the best. Started musing over the time to get back to Minneapolis. We had an idea. We looked up the nearest Enterprise, and called them. Explained them what had happened and told them that we needed to get back to Minneapolis as soon as possible. We asked them if it was alright with them if the towing service dropped of the car at their place, and we head of with a new car on the same contract ,to Minneapolis, ahead of time. As it is , we didn't think the extracted car would have been in a drivable state. For the first time, Enterprise consented. There was only one catch. This "nearest" Enterprise was at Marquette, 2.5 hours from Houghton, one way.
When Waya told me he would notify the 911 of the accident, I was infact a bit hopeful , that I would be now able to settle the insurance claim, as there would be an "accident report" generated. Earlier, we did not think there was any report involved, hence no claim!. I called 911 and asked them how to generate that report. They told me to contact the local Sheriff office for that. I did. The officer who spoke to me , first sort of scolded me for not calling in earlier to report the accident. He did not find its mention in his records. I told him the campus police had notified 911, and I thought that, that pretty much notifies everyone. After some more chat, he told me to be at the accident site immediately, as he was sending an officer to investigate.
Now, we had to drop off Madhura and Vikram to the Houghton airport. We barely dropped them at the airport and raced to arrive at the accident site. It was nearing 2 pm. The Marquette Enterprise branch closes at 5.30. So we could not start of to Marquette after 3. Right then, I got a call from Waya , saying he had got the car out. Good job, I thought. He did that in record 2-3 hours!
When we arrived at the accident site, the police officer, Deputy Sheriff Michael Scott(name changed), was already there talking to Waya. He saw us and signaled the driver, me, to come up to him. He took one look at me and asked me why I did what I did. I explained him the whole story and our thought process in going into that road. He seemed convinced. He probably knew the GPS fools people there. He told me to check if the car was in working condition. I tried to rev up the engine on parking gear and it seemed to work. But it was advised that we don't drive the car yet as the bottom carriage of the car was completely frozen, and hence it had to be thawed.
Chapter 2:
He told Waya to take the car for thawing. We intervened, saying that the car be left there, as it was a rental car, and Enterprise would decide what to do with it. We did not want to be responsible for any further cost. We were already deeply financially billed by now we thought.We just wanted to get ourselves out of the mess. He seemed to share our concern.
He took me into his car. Once inside, I could not get out of the car on my own. It was meant to carry criminals. I went in, because it was cold outside. Then he started filling up the accident report. He took down the details of my State ID. He took down the details of the car rental, and the car. He asked for my license. It was an Indian driving license. He was surprised. He said he would have to call up Enterprise to verify, because they did not rent cars on international licenses in MI. He called Enterprise. They verified that they had indeed rented a car to an Indian license.
He started filling them out on the details of the accident, and gathered that they kind of already knew the deal. Probably the person on the other end started stating terms and conditions or some sort of technical talk, so this officer said "Sir, I would give you 200 dollars , and a can of beer, to make things simple for me". I think Enterprise understood what he said. He told Enterprise to take care of their car, and it would be lying at the towing service. We were off our first responsibility.
The officer knew about our plan to go to Marquette.It was almost 3 pm, our deadline to start for Marquette.! So he spoke to Enterprise again, and told them "These gentlemen need to reach Minneapolis tomorrow. They have got exams and all. You nearest location is 2.5 hours one way. So they would need to travel 5 hours just to get the car. I don't think thats a good idea. Why don't you do this..let these gentlemen rent a car from Houghton airport, from whichever rental agency they can, and why don't you reimburse them that rent.?" I was like..wow. Enterprise again consented. This is strange because, we had asked them for exactly a similar favor, and they had declined . It turned out that, National, from where we rented our second car, is again owned by Enterprise. Cops can get things moving! This was our second problem solved.
Then we mentioned to the sheriff that towing services had already taken my credit card details. We feared they might bill us. The officer then called up the towing service head office "Hi there, this is your good looking neighbor calling",I think this is a code or informal way of letting the other person know that a cop is calling. Whatever it is, it sure got the towing service's attention. He told them to not bill us the cost of getting the vehicle out. And then he told Enterprise that the towing agency is going to bill them, and its going to be a "storage", meaning..huge!. This was a major relief. Cope can get things moving! He mentioned to Enterprise not to bill us, as we seemed to have purchased all kinds of insurance, and were hence fully covered.
I expressed a concern that the National car rental might not accept my Indian license, as we were in MI now. He frowned. He said they would probably accept, if you show them your reciept from Enterprise. So once they know that Enterprise had rented out to us, they would have no problems. But then, he gave us his phone number and asked us to call just in case we had problems renting the car.
He then continued to fill the accident report. He looked at me and asked"Were you drinking then?" and before I could answer , he said "Probably not". He had to come out of the car and open the door for me, becaue it could be opened only from outside. I told him, that this was my first time in a criminal car. He laughed and said "In a good way , though".I laughed too. He then said to Soumya, who was going to drive us to Marquette, "Shoma..is that right?. Ya. change of plans. You are not going to Marquette.You are going to airport" and then explained his new plan. Soumya was happy that some American finally could almost pronounce his name.
After the sheriff left, we , relieved, started back for the airport. Just before a nearby gas station, we saw the same sheriff wave us over.We were a bit perplexed as to why he would wave us over now? We went near him and stopped. He said he wanted to call up the car rental and settle any concerns once for all.So that we would definitely not have any problems renting the car. We were amazed at this cop. He actually called National and told them"Two gentlemen will come to you now. They need a car to Minneapolis. Have it ready for them", and then told National what had happened.The sheriff then took a look at the car that we came in . It was Shantanu's car, some Victoria car, used by cops long ago. It was not exactly in good shape. And he exclaimed, "Thats the car you should be driving into the water , guys!" . We all laughed, and then we took a picture with him.Cops can get things moving!
We were all praise for this cop. One hour ago, we were in a big mess. This guy came along, like a guardian angel, and smoothed out things for us. I could not beleive someone could be this nice, especially to us, in this foreign land.
The ride to Minneapolis, in newly rented Toyota Corolla was nearly hiccup free , and we finally settled back. Me in Minneapolis and Karthikk in Boston. I reached late night at around 1 am , and then gave a tennis practical final exam in the morning. All said and done, I went to Enterprise , in Minneapolis to settle the rentals in the evening.
I had too many issues with Enterprise. First of all, they reimbursed only 50$ from my new car rental. I thought the sheriff meant full reimbursement. And then, the guy at the front desk told me "You know you have to pay for the car damages right?"I was taken aback. I again fought with them. Argued with them. I had thought what the sheriff told them on the phone would be enough. I had taken all kinds of insurance. They said that that did not cover "off road" cases. I told them it was not my fault. I thought it was "on road due" to the GPS. And I mentioned that if"off road" was such a concern, they should have told me that when I purchased the insurance. What they had simply told me was that my insurance covered"everything". They said they did not mention me that, because they did not think such a case would happen. Then they also started blaming me for a old GPS. I told them it was brand new!! The guy told me "We don't even know if the car is salvable or not yet. " I said, "so, what if it is not salvable?".He bluntly replied "You pay the car cost, which is roughly 15000 $.". I was cursing that guy in my mind like anything. Did he really think I would give him 15000 $ for a no fault of mine? He eventually filled up their own accident report, and gave the copies of that. He said I would get a call from the insurance agency. He told the matter was not in their hands anymore, and there was no point arguing with them. Sure there wasn't. After all, when they are insured in house , they would obviously would want me to pay for damages!
I came home and tried to call sheriff who had helped us. I was told he is not on duty that day, and would return Friday by some other officer. Though I thought Enterprise was crazy, I was sure they would make me pay a lot for it. I was scared and desperate. And then this was legal matters!. I wrote an email to the sheriff, also to thank him for what he had already done, not really expecting he would read or reply to that, and definitely not before Friday. This was Wednesday still. I had obtained the email from his office.I was so happy a day before, after the sheriff had seamlessly got us out of the mess. And now this new problem!!
At 11 pm in the night, I got an email. It was the sheriff's reply. This sheriff was amazing. He actually replied to me.! I cannot state the contents here, but he agreed with my views, and told me that he knew it was not my fault, and he would do everything in his right to not let anybody take "advantage" of me. Bless this man. Since then, a row of correspondences have happened between me , sheriff, and the insurance claim agency. The sheriff gave a written explanation to them about what exactly happened. He explained the old and new highway story. He told them the GPS still routes the wrong road.He sent me a copy of the report and the explanation. The sheriff also kind of mentioned that the State should have clearly marked or closed that area off. He mentioned, in his 19 years of being a law enforcement officer, this was the oddest accident he had seen.
The claim is still being investigated. The insurance agency is trying to contact the Department of Transport, MI to verify.There is no verdict yet.
But this incident has left me in good faith. Soumya, Shantanu, managed to balance their critical work and help us out. At a point, they even took turns staying with us. Others, Andy, Gayatri, also pitched in to help quite a bit.And there were others who continuously dropped in a reassuring word. A heartfelt thanks to all of you.We were all in awe of this police officer. This guy helped us unconditionally. This was the max help I could expect. It just made me wonder if we have these kind of law enforcement officers back in India. I did not want to think about it.
Sometimes, things happen in our lives, which re-instill our faith in god. But some, re-instill our faith in men.
Nachiket Mehta
Safe and sound, back in Minneapolis
12.17.08
