6 Seconds That Changed My Life

A lesson that could change your life, too, maybe even save it

We mark our lives by dates. Births and birthdays, weddings, deaths. Certain moments are riveted into memory whether we want them or not.

Mine is May 14, 2024, 1:40 p.m. on a bright spring afternoon, the kind of day we upper Midwesterners savor after a brutal Minnesota winter. I was driving to a routine dental appointment. The planets seemed aligned, the leaves a brighter green, sky a little bluer. I was driving along a secondary roadway in my SUV. Life was good.

Until it wasn’t.

Within six seconds, everything went wrong. I must have lost consciousness. I was snapped back to reality by the sound of bricks crushing through the grill, tumbling onto the hood of the car, and shattering the windshield.

I smelled gasoline. Instinctively, I must have shut off the ignition, grabbed my phone and wallet, and climbed out of the car as I heard sirens in my fog.

First responders, police, even the bomb squad swarmed the scene.

“How do you feel?” they asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Just some breastbone pain. I really need to make my dental appointment.”

Apparently my car shot through an intersection at 40 miles an hour and slammed into the brick wall of a barbershop. Fortunately, no one else was involved, no one else was injured.

The EMT smiled gently. “Pal, no dentist for you. You’re going to the hospital.” The squad compassionately strapped me to the gurney and loaded me into the end of the ambulance I had never been in as a patient.

Lights. Sirens. Faces that were calm but tense. White knuckles on the gurney rails. I knew this wasn’t just precaution. It took a while for me to realize the doctor in me was no longer in charge. I was the patient headed to the ER.

The ambulance had barely stopped before I was rushed into a surgical bay like a scene from The Pitt. Then came the blur — wires, monitors, oxygen, hands moving with quiet precision, probing for pain, scans taken. A small army of specialists doing what they do best. Assessments confirmed. Decisions made.

Again: in seconds.

READ the rest of this blog on Medium: 6 Seconds That Changed My Life. A lesson that could change your life… | by Dr. Ed | Wise & Well | Feb, 2026 | Medium