My Near Death Experience

There was a performance that I had with Clark Terry that has proven to be quite memorable and one that had a profound affect on me in more ways than one. Kenny Washington, the young prodigy was the drummer in the band at this time and he lived in Brooklyn. Kenny was not driving, so I offered to pick him up at his apartment. I was driving a beige Pacer, which had just enough room to fit Kenny’s drum kit and my acoustic bass and amplifier. The Pacer was an unusual looking vehicle with a kind of bubble shape, but it had served me well in terms of getting me to and from gigs. This particular performance with Clark was in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which meant we had to leave New York fairly early to make the job on time.

I forgot to mention that this was also the height of the winter season and snow and ice was everywhere. Getting to Pennsylvania meant that we had to go through New Jersey, which we were able to do without a hitch. As we crossed the border of New Jersey into Pennsylvania we ran into a very hilly mountainous region that had cast a shadow on the roadway. Little did I know that we had run into highway that was covered in ice and as we began going down the other side of this sloping area I realized that I had lost complete control of the car. We had run into what is called black ice and we were probably going about 65 MPH and at the bottom of the incline I noticed that there was another vehicle stopped and we were headed for a head on collision. At that moment it seemed as though time had stood still and there was complete silence between Kenny and myself. I felt at that moment we were going to be killed, but by the grace of God as we were about to make a full head on collision with the other vehicle is when all of the sudden my car made a full 180 degree spin around and we collided with the car from the back of my vehicle.

Kenny and I were totally stunned by what had just happened. I asked Kenny if he was okay and he said he was fine, but he had blood coming from his chin which had come into contact with the neck of my bass. We soon discovered that in the other vehicle was a lady who was screaming hysterically and apparently she was following someone who I think was her boyfriend and he quickly got her out of the car. He yelled to us to get out of the car and we both did just that and ran to the opposite side of the snow covered rode. Before we knew it another car came down the same slope that we had just encountered and crashed into the right side of my vehicle where I had been sitting. That would have been devastating to me had I not left the car, because the whole side of the car was destroyed. Several more cars came down in succession like a domino affect crashing into one after the other.

My car was completely destroyed, but we were still alive, which was a true blessing. We were towed by AAA to the nearest garage where I was able to call Clark and inform him that we had just survived a horrific traffic accident. Kenny and I had no way of getting to the performance now, but Clark said he would pay for our cartage service and to get there as soon as we could. We were approximately an hour and half from Hershey, but we actually did make the gig. When we arrived Clark and John Campbell; the groups pianist had started the first set without us. It was truly a miracle that we had survived the accident and did make performing the second set with Clark and John. Clark took care of the cartage fee which was well over $200. This incident really revealed the generosity of the great Clark Terry. This experience also showed me that there is a higher power directing our lives.