I gotta agree with Dreamer on this one.
I believe it is somewhere between 5 - 8% of the population who has the [good] post-incident adrenaline reaction...
I am sure there is a technical name for it (heh, the bean sorters always have to have a label!) but is a double edged sword... Time
s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s..... Seconds become minutes...
In your brain you are working normally, but the whole world around you goes into slow motion - you can make choices - see what needs to be done but the machinery just won't respond...
I was in a car crash a couple years ago - I was driving (a Camry) and a large Con-Way truck drive into me doing 70+ mph and spun me in front of it... I
KNEW I needed to get away from it and not back into the right lane traffic... I managed to get the car controlled enuf to take it into the median wall and take the secondary impact on my corner rather than my wifes door.. then slid it [backwards] down I94 till we came to a stop on top the wall...
Total time from impact to stop - maybe 5 seconds - but it felt like several minutes... car was totaled - got all four corners and the rear floor but we got out of it with a small concussion (wife), whiplash and sprained ankle/knee (me).... I didn't realize my ankle/knee was boogered till after the cops got there.
We got off light could have been much worse. Once the adrenaline burned off then we were [aching]!
With all that said: Great story! Please tell us more!