Sometimes in life you encounter a situation that reminds you that there are a lot of people in the world with completely different lifestyles than your own.  This happened to me a few years ago when I got hit by a tweaker.

I live in Southwestern Idaho. The climate here is classified as high altitude desert.  It's either summer or winter with very little transition time between the two.  Summers are dry and stupid hot.  Winters are dry (most of the time) and dang-blammety cold.  My tweaker encounter occurred on one of those cold winter mornings.  The sun was up, but the only way you would know is because you didn't need your headlights to see very far.  I kiss of light fog was still sticking to the ground.  I was driving to work like I always do along the same farm road with hardly any traffic around.  I came upon my usual intersection to turn left and slowed to let a single oncoming car pass before I actually made the turn.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught motion on the street I was turning onto.  I watched as a small hatchback approaching the intersection crested the small hill and begin a perilous slide downhill across a thick sheet of black ice and into the intersection.  By this time, I had come to a full stop.  It was clear that the hatchback was out of control and was going to miss the stop sign.  The oncoming car passed in a blur just in front of the hatchback.  All I could do was sit and wait for the impact.  All I could think was, "This is going to hurt!"

Something uncommon happened then. It wasn't a conscious effort made or thought generated, nor reasoning or risk analysis.  It was more like my body came up with an idea, my head didn't.  My foot moved from the brake and slammed down on the gas.  In the split second before impact my little Toyota pickup moved maybe five feet forward or so, just enough to change the impending T-bone into rear clipping.

The hatchback had some momentum.  It spun me 90 degrees in the direction I wanted to turn and continued across the intersection and onto the shoulder.  I completed the turn and pulled off the road.  I got out and assessed the situation.  I wasn't hurt.  That was good news.  I ran across the street to check on the hatchback.  The guy inside was struggling with the door.  The impact had shoved the front fender to cover the door hinge making the door stick shut.  I helped pry open the door and asked if he was okay.  It was clear that he was shaken, very nervous, but otherwise unharmed.

We went back across the road to look at my truck.  Not much damage.  He was still very upset and trying to figure out what happened exactly.  In an attempt to calm him down I offered a seat on the tailgate.  I explained that this was pure accident there's nothing he or I could have done differently.  Then, as an emphasis to the point, an empty school bus crested the same hill and slid down the same patch of black ice, through the stop sign and into the intersection.  No oncoming traffic in sight.  The driver peeled a hand off the wheel, shifted into first and proceeded across the intersection.  I looked at the nervous hatchback driver and said, "Why don't we do something about that black ice before something really bad happens?"  I motioned toward the contents of my truck bed.  I was carrying a half dozen sandbags to add weight to the back end of my lightweight truck.  (A little trick you learn if you drive in the snow and ice a lot).  We unloaded the sandbags onto the ice and knifed them open spreading the sand out as best we could.  There wasn't enough to cover the whole patch, but enough to give traction.

"I suppose we should do the whole insurance thing I guess."  I mentioned as we stood admiring our work.  "I kinda don't have any paperwork with me.  It's my girlfriend's car." he replied.  "Do you think we could keep the cops out of this?"

Red flag!  Technical Foul!  My suspicious dude meter pegged and I reached for my cell phone.  "Let me call my insurance company and get their advice on the matter." I dialed 911.  I explained calmly to the dispatcher what had happened, where we were and advice on how to handle his lack of paperwork.  The dispatcher told me to take down his plate number and try to keep him there until the sheriff arrived.

"They're going to send out a claims expert. I explained.  The office is just down the street a couple of miles so it will only take a few minutes."  With a bit of relief, totally gullible hatchback dude sat back down on the tailgate, relaxed a little and asked to borrow the cell phone to call his boss.  He worked construction and it was clear from the tone in which he apologetically explained his tardiness, his job was tenuous at best.  This guy wasn't a bad guy, he was just young, inexperienced and trying to make a life for himself.  It hadn't been too long ago that I was in the same situation working three dirty jobs, 60 hours a week just to pay the rent and keep food on the table.

To be on the safe side, I managed to snap a picture of his plate as he handed the cell phone back to me.  I took a seat in the drivers seat with the door open.  As we waited for the "claims expert" to arrive, I noticed his nervous fidgeting with the contents of his coat pocket.  We were engaged in small talk when my "claims expert" arrived in the form of County sheriff K9 unit.

This guy's day just went to absolute hell from that point on.  It was almost like being on COPS.  The officer stepped out expecting a routine traffic incident.  He approached the both of us pleasantly enough, but when he got within a couple of paces of hatchback dude he stopped abruptly, his face went from routine boredom to concern as if alerted to some unseen danger.  He looked directly at hatchback dude, smiled and told him this will only take a few minutes.  He came close to me and blocked our line of sight.  "You're going to want to stay in your car with the door closed."  I pulled my legs inside and the officer closed the door.

I watched curiously as the officer instructed the guy to stand.  I cracked the window so I could hear the exchange.  The officer explained that he had detected the strong smell of methamphetamine when he approached and asked permission to search his person.  I could see the fight or flight response appear on the guy's face.  He chose unwisely.  The guy bolted across the farmers field we were parked at heading for a nearby tree line.  The officer just watched him go, shook his head and went back to his squad car.  He opened the back door.  What emerged was the biggest, knarliest, meanest looking dog you ever saw.

"Raider!  Fetch!"  The Giant Schnauzer maybe touched the ground two or three times before catching up and clamping down on the poor tweaker's thigh.  He screamed in pain and began to wrestle with the dog.  Raider had the weight advantage though and pinned the guy to the ground.  The officer half heartedly jogged over to the fracas, cuffed the guy, and hauled him back to his squad car. 

The subsequent search of the guy and his car found numerous infractions of the controlled substance and paraphernalia laws.  Multiple squad cars had arrived by that time to process the scene.  The original officer came back to my window with a smile on his face.  "Well I guess you weren't expecting that one today were you?"  He joked.  He then took down my perspective of things including the accident.  He even thanked me for putting down the sand.  "I'm afraid this guy doesn't have insurance, so you'll be stuck with your deductible."

"You know what?  I'm not so concerned about that anymore." I replied, as I got back in my truck and continued on with my commute.  As I arrived at work, I felt my cell phone in my pocket.  I paused to take it out and look at it.  I fingered the redial button and was connected to a construction company.  I asked for the same guy the tweaker did and was transferred.

"You know your employee that called in a little while ago with the traffic accident?  Well, he's going to be a lot more than late today...."

In my line of work, I have become accustomed to surprises.  But, even so there are days when you just can't predict what will happen to you.  It was a normal Tuesday morning.  I drove into work and sat in my cube just as I have done a bazillion times before.  I popped the top on my Mountain Dew and read the daily comics.  Now it's time for actual work to begin.  I launched Outlook with the dread of seeing 4 dozen emails with things I had to do that day.

Scanning the subject lines, the vast majority of them were between my boss and the sales weenie in Korea talking about a big customer with the initials LG.  "Oh crap," I thought to myself,  "what do they want now?"  Several months prior to this, they had sent me a 50" plasma television that uses one of our products that I'm responsible for.  They complained that it wasn't working the way they thought it should.  It took me the good part of 3 months to go through the TV they sent, tweaking components here and there and getting it to a point where I saw an improvement.  Based on the work I had done, I summarized the activities I did along with all the changes and recommendations in a pretty detailed report about 80 pages long.  I sent them the report along with copies to the Field Service Engineer and all the sales weenies in the area.  My boss even commended me on the thoroughness of the report.  Five months past and I didn't hear a word.

I opened the first sales weenie email in the chain to get an idea of what was going on.  LG was mad.  They wanted this TV problem fixed and they wanted it done now.  Another TV problem?  I read on.  The discussion did not focus on what the problem was, only that they wanted somebody at the plant to meet with the engineering team working on this ASAP.  To my horror, that somebody was me.  My boss was doing his best to keep me out of it, but in the end, I was selected.  I walked over to his office and peeked my head in.  He obviously heard me coming and asked, "Your passport current?" Unfortunately it was.  "Your Visa is being cleared as we speak.  Get with Bonnie" (our office admin), "and arrange the quickest flight." Gulp!

Seven hours later I was on a flight to Seattle, then to Incheon, S. Korea where the sales weenie who got me into this mess would meet me there and drive me to the LG plant in Gumi.  (Middle O'Nowhere, Korea about a four hour drive from Seoul.)  I had time to go home, pack my bag, my briefcase, kiss my wife and kid goodbye and get off to the airport.  It was a long ass flight, but at least I was in business class.  A guy my size would not be able to survive that long in coach.  During the flight I was very nervous.  I had no idea what to expect, what the problem was and how long I was going to be there.  I didn't sleep much on the plane and I was dead tired once I reached Seoul.  The sales weenie, I'll call him SW from now on, greeting me with much gratitude and hospitality.  We got into his fancy car and drove to this what I can best describe as agrarian village surrounded by mountains on all sides.  It was about 10pm when we got to the small hotel SW had selected for us.  The room was on the very small side, but it had a bed and a shower and that's all I wanted at the moment.

I slept well that night, mainly because I was completely exhausted.  8am rolled around and I got up and showered in the completely tiled bathroom and went downstairs.  The hotel had a small cafe next to it for breakfast and SW translated very well.  Nice meal not too much.  Over breakfast, I had a real stern conversation with SW that began with the words, "So, SW,  What the hell am I doing here?" (Except I used his real name, not SW).  He went on to explain a problem they were having with a line of plasma televisions not working the way they thought they should.  Strange.... That sounded a little familiar to me.

After breakfast we drive to the customer plant down the street from the hotel.  We checked in at the security gate and met our contact.  This place was HUGE.  It was a more akin to a university campus than it was to a manufacturing plant.  We made our way to one of the buildings and then to an obscure conference room.  The table was cluttered with various tools, scopes, parts and a 50" plasma TV.  I looked at the TV closely.  It was familiar, very familiar.  I got out my lab book and turned to the notes I had taken on the TV I so closely examined months earlier.  The serial numbers matched.  This IS that TV!  I told SW, "This should be easy.  This is that same TV they sent me last year."  SW replied, "What TV?"
"You know that 50" plasma they sent over for me to diagnose 8 months ago.  Didn't you see the report I wrote on it?"  I reached in my briefcase and brought out a printed copy.  SW thumbed through it nervously.  "When did you send this out?"
"Five months ago when I finished the 3 month investigation on it!"

Just then, our contact returned to the conference room with the engineering team and a few levels of management.  The next 2 hours were spent of me listening to one Korean sales weenie explain in his native tongue what was going on.   He passed out my report, a cute young office gal went and made copies and the engineers and management began going over my report page by page.  It was the first time they had seen it.  While they did so, I sat in the corner and listened to the cacophony of sound as they discussed the findings and how it affected them.  A few times during this, I was asked to show them particular things, like how to measure this or that signal or what component I was referring to.

Lunchtime came around and we all went down to the cafeteria.  The food was pretty good and very similar in nature to the food I had grown to like while living in Japan.  (Another story)  I even managed to impress the locals with my mastery of chop sticks.  BTW, Asians find it peculiar to see an American manipulate chop sticks with enough dexterity to pick up a single grain of rice and feed himself.

After lunch, SW mentioned that things were going very well, but still could not explain why they hadn't seen this report prior to all this.  I could tell he was very embarrassed, so I didn't press the issue.  The meeting wrapped up and SW and I began the 4 hour drive back to Seoul.  Once there, he took me to a very nice Korean BBQ place that was absolutely fantastic.  Afterward, he drove me to the hotel.  This hotel was a far cry from the night before.  This was a monster, 40 story, 5 star, Grand Intercontinental.  I shook SW's hand and thanked him for his hospitality.  I stepped out of the car and noticed the bell hop already had my bags and was directing my to the front desk.  They already knew my name, had keys ready and escorted me to my room on the 25th floor.  And what a room!  By far the poshest room / suite I had ever seen.  I visited the gift shop downstairs, and the observation lounge on the top floor.  A very restful evening before another day of travel.

The flight home led me through Japan, San Fran, and then home.  It was a long, exciting, and completely unnecessary trip.   Total bill for 1 day of work in S. Korea plus 2 days of travel came to over $12K.  And it could have been completely avoided, had the right people read the right report at the right time.  My boss was a little peeved at the situation and rightfully so.  SW resigned shortly thereafter.