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Vice Blog

IT HAPPENED: I FELL OUT OF A MOVING TRUCK

A couple weekends ago a few friends and I went down to Gainesville, Florida, to see some bands and drink some beers. You can shoot down to Jacksonville from NYC on JetBlue, rent a crappy car and spend a few days in downtown Gainesville without spending much money at all, but as a concession to the poor friend in our group (not to name names, Daniel Jensen Cain), we had to make poor people sleeping arrangements. Specifically, we had plans to stay with a friend of a friend, a nice wiry fellow named Dustin.

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When we arrived at Dustin’s Friday afternoon, things started off on nice solid ground. He pulled the ol’ "Oh, shit…it’s all of you?" prank before cracking a smile (nice move, breaks the ice with strangers), then showed us to our quarters in his baby’s temporarily vacant playroom. (Again, this is solid and shows that he understands we might shit the floor and is resigned to it)

Friday night went as expected with bands, booze, blah blah. Saturday afternoon we woke up and hopped in Dustin’s pick-up to head back downtown to do it all again. As the night progressed, the group splintered to see some different bands at different venues. Already burnt out on fat dudes with beards and guitars, Bryce, Dan and I went to a local Irish pub to watch fat dudes without beards or guitars sing sad karaoke songs instead. After a particularly inspired rendition of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," we got word Dustin was going to be heading home. It’s about a 30-minute walk from downtown to his place, so we jumped at the chance to pile into the back of his truck and catch a ride.

The flatbed of Dustin’s truck was a little weird. Though enclosed, the latch on the window facing out the back was broken. You’d kind of just hook it to the bottom so it didn’t fly open as you drove. So anyway, Bryce, Dan, this guy Wade, and I all squeeze in there, and Dustin starts to pull out of his parking space. As he does, I start to feel like I’m sitting on something rather uncomfortable and crouch up onto my heels to readjust my ass by a few inches. At that exact moment, Dustin looks up to see the light at the end of the block turn yellow and guns it.

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Next thing I know I’m in a crumpled heap in the middle of the street. My first thought was that I was dead or paralyzed. I’ve always hated reading "I thought I was dead" because if you are thinking you are pretty obviously not dead, but whatever—that’s what happened. Then I began to evaluate things. I couldn’t move my left arm and there was a lot of blood coming from the left side of my head. I didn’t know exactly what had happened at the time, but turns out I had flown headfirst directly through the broken back window when he hit the gas. I was later told I exited the cab like the Flash, if his speed was geared toward nosedives instead of sprints. Stunned and not just a little embarrassed, I made it to my knees and looked around to see that, shockingly, not a single person had witnessed one of the coolest things I’ll ever do in my life.

More problematically, even my friends were nowhere to be found. Dustin has a slab of soundproof glass between the front cab and the flatbed, and he had apparently made the light, turned left and continued right on driving back to his place. He mistook the window pounding of Bryce and Dan as excitement over the Floor record he was blasting, and it wasn’t until he got stopped at another light a few blocks down that they were able to jump out and come find me.

I decided to forgo the ER in favor of more beers, whiskey, and makeshift band T-shirt slings, a decision I later regretted when my insides swelled up and I couldn’t fit a shirt over my chest anymore. I flew back to New York on Monday afternoon and went immediately to Beth Isreal, where they told me I had a sprained shoulder to go along with some internal bruising and swelling. All in all, it was a big win given the circumstances. Now I’ve got a bunch of Oxycodones, an ear that looks like it belongs to a high school wrestler, and something in common with Bruce Willis. Two outta three ain’t bad.

RYAN DUFFY

(The top photo isn't of the actual incident. We just took it outside for reference. Use your brains.)