 So as we start here, I need you to know that the title of this video is not clickbait or an exaggeration. If anything, a downplay is what actually happened. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, delightful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you for joining me here today for probably the most exciting thing, like the single most exciting moment that's ever happened in my life. By exciting, I also mean very traumatic, terrifying, and just a lot to take in. But this is a story I've wanted to tell for a little while, and I finally got the footage to be able to do so. So let's talk about the time that a truck flipped over my head and nearly crushed me and my dogs to death. And that description doesn't even begin to explain the severity of what actually happened. So our story is set in my first apartment as a married woman. Back in 2015, my husband and I got married. We were living in this cute little apartment at the bottom of a three-story apartment building that was like set way down in the earth. I'll show you what I mean. And life was good. We were newlyweds. We were setting up our beautiful, lovely new home when disaster struck. Now, because I'm talking about the first time we rented an apartment, I do want to introduce you to our sponsor today, Lemonade. Lemonade, our delightful sponsor today, is a rental insurance company. Now, if you are about to tune out because insurance is just not that thrilling of a topic, allow me to tell you a story. A few years ago, I lost my home and everything I owned in the Black Forest Fire. Everything was burned to ashes. And if I did not have insurance in that situation, I know I would still be feeling the effects of that event to this day. I used to think I'm a broke college kid. I don't really have that much that's worth anything. But going through the process of losing everything I owned, I realized how much things like clothes add up to, how much my computer is worth that I wouldn't have been able to reimburse without insurance. My bike, my car keys, the list went on and on. Ever since that moment, I have been passionate about making sure that I and those I love are covered with good insurance. So if you are a renter, as I was along with my husband, Brian, in this first apartment I'm about to tell you a story about, I would so highly recommend checking out Lemonade. Rental insurance does not have to be expensive. Their plans start out as low as $5 a month. And additionally, one of my favorite things about them is that unused premiums actually go to charity. Rental insurance covers what you own as a renter. For instance, your favorite fake potted plant, your yoga mat, those beautiful fairy lights that make you feel trendy and cool. And much more important things like computers and hard drives. None of us like to think that bad things are actually going to happen to us, but being someone where I've experienced multiple life changing events where insurance was very important, I would highly encourage you to check out the link down below. The process to get a quote is very simple. I've gone through it myself. It takes like five minutes. And on the off chance, something does happen. It can save you thousands upon thousands of dollars and give you great peace of mind. And now back to the truck smashing story or Joe almost getting smashed by a truck story. For real though, as someone who's worked in real estate for years, I would highly recommend getting renter's insurance. It can save you so much money, time, trouble, heartache. It really gives you a lot of peace of mind and I highly recommend it. I used it myself. So it was a chilly night in October when my husband and I got into a fight. It was not our proudest moment. And I remember getting really upset, grabbing my two dogs at that time, Sadie and Monkey, clipping on their retractable leashes and sort of in a huff going outside because I was frustrated with what he was saying. He was frustrated with me. And I went and took the dogs back behind our building. Now to understand the story, it is important that you know the layout of how this building is situated. So I actually made it back to that apartment complex just so I could take footage for what I'm about to show you. So a little weird to be back here. So we lived on the bottom floor and behind us was this wall of rock that went up two stories. At the top of those two stories, there was a very, very busy road, very busy intersection. But between the building and the wall, there was a strip of grass where you could walk your dogs, take them out back, that sort of thing. So I went out there with the dogs that night. I'm sure it was like trying to make a point by staying outside and being mad. When all of a sudden, I hear three very loud noises above my head. Now keep in mind the street is above me and I hear a crashing and a crunching and then again and then again. And I remember I had enough time to think. I think there's a car wreck. I think a car wreck just happened right above me. And so I looked up to where the sound was coming from when I swear this was just like an action movie. I experienced it in slow motion. A truck flew over my head, crashed into the apartment building and came careening to the ground in a smoking mess. It's kind of weird to be standing underneath this again. So the truck flew over that gate there and then hit the second story there. Well, me and my dogs were standing about here when the truck hit about right over there. Where this very large vehicle hit was a few feet from where I was standing with the dogs and I was actually headed in that direction as I heard the sound. When I say it felt like an action movie, like my memory of what happened really is so slowed down. Like I picture the arch of the truck and then the collision with the building it kind of bounced back off the building and then came to a shockingly still, stand still on the ground. The dogs were terrified, took off running, ripped the leashes out of my hand and ripped my hand open. I actually still have a scar which you can see to this day. And when this happened I was very much in shock. My apartment was right there and so I ran to get my husband and then we ran to the truck and that's when the reality hit me that I was probably about to walk up to find someone dead and I had never seen a dead body at that point in my life. And I remember actually standing there for a brief moment and sort of inhaling and realizing that what I might see in this moment would change me for the rest of my life. Wanting to run away if I'm entirely honest and then choosing to walk forward and we were able to get around to the driver's side and there was a girl in there who was still moving. And the weirdest thing to me was she was asking where's my phone? Where's my phone? As she has just flipped over a very busy intersection hit an apartment building and fallen three stories. She was bloody. Her seatbelt was still on it. She obviously wasn't okay but she was okay. Like I fully expected her to be dead. I remember calling 911 and then she ended up giving me her mom's phone number. I was on the phone with her mom like directing her into the apartment complex as emergency vehicles arrived and incredibly the paramedics were able to get her out of her truck. She went to the hospital. All I know is she did survive. She was okay but I was not allowed to know anything beyond that. So something I forgot to mention here is that this is what our apartment looked like after the crash. She actually hit mostly the second floor so it was much worse up there but our apartment was significantly damaged as well and they did take like four months to fix it but you know, is what it is. So let's put on pause for a moment that I was almost crushed by a truck and that that was terrifying to see and go into what actually happened at the intersection that night. So like I said, two major roads in Colorado Springs are right above this apartment complex. One is a very long hill coming down and apparently this girl was texting on her phone, ran a red light, hit another vehicle, flipped three times in the intersection, missed a lot of telephone and like lighting poles after flipping a number of times continued to fly over the fence and into the apartment building where the truck then fell down. In that vehicle that she hit there was a man and a pug who were 100% okay. They were hit going like 60 miles per hour. This truck flipped multiple times like this was a very bad accident and they were 100% okay. Now when the car went over obviously she flipped over my head. I was very frightened but I was physically okay. And in the back of her truck there was a tire. When her truck flipped that tire went flying through the second story window and the window that it went through was the bedroom of a two-year-old boy. When first responders went up to the second floor and got into that room they told me they fully expected to see a dead child because the bed was smashed to pieces. But even though this was not their normal schedule the kid was with his dad that night because the mom had some specific engagement. So he should have been in his bed and he would have instantly been killed but he was 100% okay. The lady in the apartment above us had just gone out meaning she did not get hit by the flying tire that literally left tire marks on the back wall of that room. So including the dog there were five lives that probably should have easily all been killed that night and literally all of us walked away from that accident. It was mind-blowing. Now I want to get into one of the reasons that I wanted to share this story which was how I reacted to this event. At this point in my life I was pretty fresh out of a lot of trauma. I was just married. I was very happy but I was also in a very difficult mental and emotional place where I felt like the world was kind of out to get me. There had been a lot of traumatic and bad events that happened in my life back to back to back be it medical or relational or anything. And when this happened it felt like the nail in the coffin that life was just out to get me. Like I truly believed that me being outside of the exact moment that happened was somehow the universe continuing to taunt me and torment me and tear me apart. I felt like this was just one more thing in a long line of utter shit that was gonna be my life forever. Like everything was so unfair and I had been singled out by the world, by God, by hell. I didn't know to just constantly be traumatized. Like that is where my mind went. In the days following this crash I was a mess. I was like traumatized by this. I realized I almost could have been killed. It was very jarring but the thing that I had the hardest time with was this idea that everything was out to get me. And man, that just caused me to spiral down so quickly. I was already consistently seeing a counselor once a week if that gives you any indication of my mental state. When this happened I remember going into him feeling so utterly victimized and powerless in the world because there's just more evidence of the fact that nothing is ever gonna be okay and everything's always gonna suck and I'm always gonna be traumatized and why does this always happen to me? And through our conversations I realized that yes, I could look at the situation like that or alternate theory. I could look at it as a random event that I survived and I'm very grateful to have survived, right? Like I could look at this as a thing that was orchestrated by some force to continue to break me down or it could be something that was not tied to anything else and just happened. And when I began thinking about it like that it suddenly lost its power over me. Now, I'm not saying that the event itself wasn't traumatizing because it absolutely was. It was very frightening. I remember a friend showed me a video of a car doing a jump like six months later and I instantly started crying because it like took me back to the moment that a car flipped over my head. It had an impact on me but this narrative that I had formed in my head of the world was out to get me and I would never be okay. It was the thing that was actually damaging my life so much more than that trauma that I had been a part of separating out what I believed about the event and the story that I created about what caused it and why it happened to me from the reality that something just happened and I was there and it was difficult. It was scary but I made it out really helped me to begin to move forward and I was able to kind of bring some of those tools with me throughout the rest of my life. When really crappy things happen I think it is very easy and I don't blame anyone myself included for initially thinking this it's really easy to think that it's about us that like the world or whatever is out to get us is out to hurt us because this happened to us. So that's a very logical conclusion to come to especially when you experience difficulties or traumas kind of back to back but in my opinion most of the time that is not the case most of the time bad things do happen but we are not utterly powerless in every situation we are not perpetually the victim of life. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was that and I almost feel a lot of shame saying that out loud because you're not supposed to say that like you felt like a victim but I sure did I had been a victim of things and I felt it when I had that mindset it didn't enable me to really gather any tools to fight back or to stand on my own two feet I just kept like falling further and further you know but through working on it through therapy and journaling and reflection and conversations coming to the realization that sometimes bad things happen and they suck and we have to deal with them and it's really hard and it hurts but that the world is not here to make us into victims that was something that was very empowering to me and from that moment onward as additional things have happened to me in my life I've been able to kind of separate out that victimization narrative from simply acknowledging the severity of something or feeling the effects of it without this complication of believing that I will always be victimized and I will always be hurt because believing that is really difficult it makes it hard to like want to stay alive but we are not perpetually victims of this world and that was such an important thing for me to learn and it took a car flying over my head to kind of connect the dots and realize that that is how I was thinking about things looking back at the situation it just blows my mind how how much worse things could have been like I said there were five lives involved that night that all walked away it was a bizarre thing to experience but looking back on it now it's just that it doesn't really hold any emotional charge it was just man it felt like some kind of like John Wick or Indiana Jones or something kind of movie like just seeing the truck fly above me man it was weird also very important point the dogs were perfectly okay they were not harmed in any way they were just very scared the poor babies I love them so much so yeah I was almost crushed by a truck but I wasn't which is the reason why I am here making videos today thank you for listening to my story I truly appreciate it I kind of like telling stories from different points in my life I've spent a lot of this channel talking specifically about my life in the last two and a half years you know becoming an amputee and all that jazz but I like talking about other things too so thanks for hanging with me and hearing my story a huge thank you to our sponsor Lemonade please click the link in the description to check it out if you are a renter I highly recommend finding good renters insurance so check out Lemonade today they also have a super cute name so that's great thank you to my patrons for continuing to support these videos you mean the world to me I truly appreciate your support and to you watching this video right now thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today you could be anywhere else in the world doing absolutely anything else but you chose to hang with me for a few minutes and that means a lot to me thank you I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys