From 70 miles per hour to 0. In one second.That is how long it took for the moment of impact to forever taint the memory of science teacher, Gerry Marchand. The moment when his friends’ Volkswagen Jetta slammed into a guard rail post, stopping only after first knocking 11 other wooden rails down onto the snow covered ground.
Not even a minute before, all Marchand saw was the nearly vacant I-80 highway in Colorado with sleet and snow drizzling onto the windshield, making for dangerous driving conditions.
Tired from the ski trip and on the way back from a long ride home from Colorado, he sipped pop as an attempt to stay awake. Staring ahead, the only distraction was a semi-truck passing the medium sized vehicle where he sat on the passenger side. Marchand held little knowledge that was the last thing he would see.
A few seconds later, all control was lost. The serene moment where all he felt was exhaustion vanished.
Nick, a lifelong friend of Marchand, fervently tried to regain control of the wheel.
“Don’t bother steering, just hold on. There is no point. There is nothing you can do. Just hold on,” said Marchand, too terrified to say anything else.
Skidding sideways down the highway at 70 mph, he stared at Nick. He was ghost white and he might as well have been a mirror, because he knew he looked exactly the same.
The car made a sharp turn back to the right, almost completing a full circle. After hitting black ice, Marchand found himself hydroplaning at more than 50 mph backwards.
He held on for his life. He was frozen with fear and his head was filled with the concern of what they were going to hit. Marchand knew slamming into a tree would mean death. Remembering the semi-truck that had passed them not even a few minutes ago, Marchand knew hitting it would mean serious injuries if not death.
His gaze shifted from his friend’s pale face past two other friends sitting in the backto the back window. Marchand then knew what was coming. He braced himself.
A few seconds later, a slam erupted into the silence.
“Did we just hit a curb?”
Unaware both Chris and Gary awoke. They had surprisingly slept through a moment Marchand considered his life to be in danger.
Although, Marchand had lost some possessions in the collisions, he had gained a terrifying near-death experience.
For all the damage to the car, the boys had few to no physical injuries.
“It took a while to realize it was a lot of damage for my friend to just have a bump on his head,” said Marchand. “When you are going that fast in those conditions, I did not expect to come out walking.”
Now their luggage, skiing gear, and other possessions that were packed into the trunk were littered all over the highway.
Although this occured in the winter of 1996, Marchand still recalls each memory vividly.
“I remember we got out and the trunk was completely squished. All the luggage looked like it was stuck in a garbage compactor,” said Marchand. “The trunk had flown up and the luggage flew all over the highway.”
Wanting to stay away from this memory as much as possible, Marchand would soon have a harsh reminder 11 months later on a trip visiting Nick at the University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign.
“You can go up there to look. I’m not going up there. I’m not going up there to check up on her, I’m not going to look.”
These were the words a startled truck driver exclaimed to Marchand and his freshman college roommate. He had flagged them down on a 135 mile trip from Des Moines to Ohama. The weather was rough, so they saw many cars in ditches and semi’s pulled over along the highway.
The semi-truck was pulled over on an angle on the side of the highway. Marchand walked a few steps to the front and his eyes met a scene he considers to be the most gruesome he has ever seen.
“It was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Marchand. “You never think when you are going somewhere in your life you’re going to see something like that.”
An older woman was moaning strewn between the windshield and the inside of her car. She unconsciously laid on the hood of her car with blood on the ground, dashboard, and herself.
Marchand was left remembering his previous accident when he had realized she had collided headfirst into the semi-truck.
Occurring only eleven months after his first accident, Marchand recalled how the injured woman could have been him if the car had crashed forward. He knows he would have been launched forward through the windshield since he had no seatbelt on at the time of impact.
Nearly three years later, a visit to the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign to visit Nick, caused Marchand to relive the memory he dreaded again.
Now an upperclassman at Northern Illinois University, Marchand drove down I-57 planning to visit Nick during Christmas break of 2001.
He had found himself behind a 1993 Nissan Central occupied with college kids. Due to driving on cruise control, Marchand passed a SUV he was once behind in the side lane since he did not want to change his speed. He would find out soon that was a bad decision.
Driving at 10 o clock at night and feeling slightly drowsy, Marchand drove with his girlfriend, now wife, Trisha, in the passenger seat. Looking straight ahead, he suddenly observed the Nissan Central rapidly swerve into the next lane.
In a second, Marchand found himself headfirst against a pair of blaring headlights. They drew in closer and increased. As the wheels of his car rolled forward the lights of the oncoming car drew, closer not slowing down in the slightest.
Grabbing the wheel, he jerked the car to the right, only missing the oncoming car by two feet. He struggled to control his own car, swerving not to hit the SUV or Nissan Central.
“I can still remember the lights,” said Marchand.
After checking each other’s safety, Marchand and his wife looked for the car that had nearly collided headfirst with him only to see nothing. The car driving in the wrong lane in the highway was gone.
“I assumed there was nearly 200 feet of grass that slightly dipped down between lanes,” said Marchand. “He could have been drunk or fell asleep at the wheel. I still don’t know.”
Fourteen years later, Gerry Marchand can still remember the collisions. How it suddenly occurred, how it felt to be completely helpless, how it felt to know your life is in danger, and how it felt to know that these could be your last moment alive.
“From that point on, I was just thankful to be alive,” said Marchand. “It definitely changes your mind to have almost died. You appreciate life more.”
No one forgets a near-death experience and although it’s been more than a decade, he has not forgotten that weekend night during Christmas break of 1998, the woman hanging out of her front window, or nearly hitting another car head on.
He remembers. After surviving two life-threatening situations, science teacher Gerry Marchand, can say he could not be here teaching Anatomy at Huntley High School. He could be buried under the ground mixed with dirt and a stone tombstone planted some feet above his skull, but thankfully he isn’t. He is teaching the students of Huntley high School in room 212.