Misadventures of Gomez: Amusing Stories of Defying Death

By Robert O. Tellez

Miraculously surviving incidents and accidents that could have ended in death. All these events can be verified by eye-witnesses, hopital and police records, pictures and scars. Some stories are unbelievable, some amusing, all true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626756274

Book preview

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Rolling the Brat in Texas

I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas from the spring of 1981 to the summer of 1982. During my stay there I purchased a red Subaru Brat. It was like a small pick-up truck with a 4-speed manual transmission, 4-wheel drive and two seats in the bed for extra passengers. It was a great little truck for exploring the back roads of Texas.

In March or April, one of my buddies went home on leave and wanted me to pick him up at Bergstrom Airport in Austin when he returned. We called him Mac because his name started with Mc and he was southern born and raised. I agreed to pick him up when he returned. It would be on a Sunday evening.

On the day I was to pick Mac up, I hung around the barracks killing time drinking a couple of beers and shooting pool with some of the other guys. Now before you say, AHA! He was drunk before he left Ft. Hood, I was not. I knew better than to flout the laws of Texas and it would be a long drive.

Mac’s plane would not arrive in Austin till very late that evening. When I left Ft. Hood it was already getting dark. It being a Sunday, I didn’t want to take I-35 south to Austin, figuring traffic would be heavy with people driving home from their week-end get aways. I left Killeen taking 195 south to 138 west. 138 ended at 183 and from there I would travel south on 183 all of the way to the airport. I can’t be absolutely sure this is the route I took but looking at a map, it seems like the logical one. I believe this accident happened at the junction of 138 and 183.

As I was cruising along 183 heading west, I was losing the radio signal I was listening to and reached down to fiddle with the dial searching for a station from Austin or San Antonio. As I was looking down at the radio, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that I was seeing lights. Thinking that I was passing through a populated area I figured I better slow down. As I looked up from the radio I saw a stop sign! I hit my brakes and turned the steering wheel to the left. The next thing I know, my world is spinning. When the Brat stopped rolling, it was lying on its driver side.

I was still buckled in my seat, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel, radio blaring and my windshield wipers were on. WOW! What the heck just happened? I turned off the wipers, the radio, the ignition and my lights. I unbuckled my seat belt and reached up to roll down my passenger side window. With difficulty, I stood up and stuck my head up out of the window like a prairie dog sticking his head out of his home. I was in some farmer’s freshly plowed field.

I crawled out of the Brat and started to rock it back and forth to get it back on its wheels. After doing that, I walked around the truck to assess the damage, thinking maybe I could still drive out of there. That hope was dashed when I saw the front passenger side wheel bent inward at about a 20 degree angle. So much for that idea. I walked out to the road to figure out what had happened. The road that I was on, ended in a T-intersection. That’s why I believe this happened at the junction of 138 and 183. Either the centrifugal force of me sharply turning my steering wheel at high speed caused the Brat to flip and start rolling or I swung too wide off of the road and hit some very large rocks along the field, causing the Brat to roll. Whichever way it happened my ride was trashed

A car pulled up shortly afterward. The driver got out and asked me if I was O.K. I