DIRTY STUFF
WILLIAM PORKER
D
OOMED, I was. Doomed to die slowly
in agonising pain, trapped by the
vice-like grip of a car-door window
frame. And there was no nearby help,
no friendly face to get me out of this hell. I was
stuck there, half in and half out of a mongrel
metal car. And I knew I was going to die, just
like JC on his cross.
I live alone, in a small house on a one-hectare
block in rural cow and sugarcane country, with
no close neighbours. But I do have a big shed
for my cars. One of these is a 1958, prototype
alloy-bodied, English-origin Rochdale coupe,
which has been chopped and changed over
the years. There is a long history with this
sports coupe, which began with a fibreglass
body and the internals of a wrecked early
1950s Ford 8hp van.
The owner and builder of this vehicle was
an engineer with Dunlop, and on his second
trip to Australia, he brought his family and the
coupe to live in a land that was heaps warmer
than England. Sometime later, the car was
involved in an accident in Adelaide by a new
owner, which damaged the flimsy Rochdale
GRP body beyond economical repair. So
that’s when it got the new thin alloy-sheet body.
I got it as a stripped-out multi-tube chassis,
still with alloy body and a windscreen. Nobody
knew what it was, but I found the original
owner/builder in Townsville and he filled in the
history gaps. So I rebuilt it with Ford 8/10 bits,
and because it doesn’t weigh much, it goes
really well with all its screaming 50hp!
But I was now going to die, all because the
Odyssey battery in this coupe lives down
beside the four-cylinder engine, and was almost
flat. So I’d grabbed my 10-amp charger and
trundled this to where the car sat in a shelter
beside the big shed, then realised I would haveto open the forward-hinged bonnet. The catch
for that is inside the cramped cabin, centred
forward of the lower rail of the windscreen
frame. This is just a short, flat, spring-loaded
lever you pull back; the bonnet then bounces
open and you have lots of access to the engine
bay. Easy.
Problem was, I would either have to open the
left-side door or reach in through the window
hole. As the small door is difficult for me to
open, I stupidly chose to reach in, with my
body part-way through the door, and grab that
handle. Simple, a manoeuvre I had done many
times before. But I must be getting old andfat, because I was in as far as the middle of
my ribcage, and still that handle was too far
away. So I shoved until my ribcage cleared
the lower edge of the door, and opened the
bonnet. Okay. Just get back out of there and
plug in the charger.
Hah! I was in that damn car up to my waist,
and couldn’t move! I pushed and I wriggled
and shoved my body backwards, causing more
and more pain, but I was trapped. The lower lip
of the rolled alloy window frame was jammedagainst my ribcage and I couldn’t get my body
higher to clear, even blowing out every bit of
air I had in my lungs. The more I swore at my
stupidity and wriggled backwards, the more
my body seemed to swell up with all that pain
I was creating. And I had no leg purchase with
my feet on a slippery dirt floor.
After 45 minutes of this and getting no place
at all, with only 150mm gained backwards at
the cost of lost skin and damaged belly muscle,
I sucked in a deep breath and considered my
options. Yelling for somebody to get me out of
there was not going to achieve a damn thing, as
the neighbours across the back always went
into town shopping on a Wednesday – and
today was Wednesday. My other neighbours
w e r e d i a g o n a l l y to t h e e a s t f r o m m y s i d e f e n c e ,
but I would’ve needed a megaphone for them
to hear my hysterical yelling. So I had to face
reality. I was going to die. They would one day
find my rotting corpse still stuck in that bloody
car door, and say that the silly old fart has really
done it this time. And he’s not got any money
to pay for a funeral.
I had to get out of there. And I figured there
might be a way. If I slid myself forward into that
small cabin, my bum and my hips might just fit
through that window hole. Or else I would be
in a really bad position, and die in extreme pain.
Have a go, you idiot – what else can you do?
So I grabbed the rollbar and the steering wheel
and heaved like hell and hoped.
Suddenly, my head slammed against the
right-side sill panel, and my body was on the
car floor. I was stuck no more. Got my legs
inside, opened the door and fell out, face first,
into the dirt.
I will survive my cracked ribs and belly
bruises, but I might just light a fire in that bitch
beside the big shed, then realised I would have of the rolled alloy window frame was jamme of a car come tomorrow! sI WAS IN THAT DAMN
CAR UP TO MY WAIST,
AND COULDN’T MOVE!
I PUSHED AND I
WRIGGLED AND SHOVED
MY BODY BACKWARDS,
BUT I WAS TRAPPED