t was the third time I had escaped death. This time I fell asleep at the wheel of my roommates Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with his motorcycle mounted on the bed of the truck New Year's morning 2008 around 7:45 am. My roommates asleep in the passengers seat, after a night of partying, stressing, laughing, reflecting, and drinking. A typical New Year's experience, anyway I had just left one of the most frustrating shows I never played. After a night of hurry up and wait, I couldn't wait to get out of Los Angeles. I left the club without pay, without a place to stay, without enough money for a hotel, without any patience to take a step back, breathe, and process the situation. Taking that step could've been the step to save my life. Instead it was the seatbelt that saved me instead of common sense, because common sense said "Wait a minute, you didn't even sleep the night before, and you need to slow down before..." and before you know it, BAM! The guard rail smashes like aluminum foil as the four wheel drive, half ton pickup goes right over the cliff. The back tires hit the ground and this throws the nose of the truck directly vertical in a split second as we flip once, then we go around a second time and the roof of the cab hits the ground and the windshield shatters as we continue flipping until the truck lands right side up. I ask my roommate if he was alright, he had slept through the entire thing. We both walked away with minor bumps and bruises.

After the accident, I couldn't sleep. I kept having nightmares of the sounds and sensations of being upside down, dirt flying, steel bending, glass shattering not to mention the thought of what could have happened. I knew that things could definitely be a lot worse. As I thought about what the tow truck driver, the paramedics, the highway patrol all said; "That I'm lucky to not only be alive, but the fact that we were not seriously injured was nothing short of a miracle." The tow truck driver elaborated that he had seen many fatal accidents with much less damage to the vehicle. The miracle to me that was keeping me up was the fact that this was not the first time I had heard almost these exact words almost exactly 4 years ago to the day. It happened while crossing the street during a snowstorm one night when I was hit by a car traveling at 35 mph. My body rolled up the car which projected me forward, my body flipped in the air three times before I landed on my back sliding about 15 feet down the middle of the street barely avoiding being hit a second time by on coming traffic. I left the hospital 2 hours later with a prescription for Vicodin and a pair of crutches. My right fibula barely broken under my knee. The doctor, paramedics, witnesses including the cop who gave me a ticket for jaywalking, all said it was a miracle that I was alive, and after I leave the hospital, I should buy a lottery ticket. Much earlier in my life than that, a drive by shooters bullet that came through the window of a 711, where I was working at the time, landed in the back of a customer, instead of my head. The customer was bent over picking up a pair of 2 liter bottles of Coke a Cola. As he stood up straight in front of the cash register, the bullet came through the window, while I was waiting at the register to ring him up. The cops told me that from where the bullet came through the window, and from where I told them I was standing, if he was not standing there, I would've been dead. The bullet was removed, and the victim survived without serious injuries.

I seemed to have the same experiences each time it happened. I remembered every last detail. it was as if it all happened in slow motion, my body never reacted negatively, such as going into shock or panic. It was as if I had an innate nature to think fast and react in dangerous situations, or maybe it was that I had a so many people out there praying for me, or maybe it was just luck. I never really believed in luck or coincidences, and so I felt there had to be a reason why all of this had happened.

--To be continued