Near Death Experience

Here it is, the "Offramp from Hell". Several weeks ago now, Carissa and I were heading up to the Boston Temple. I had noticed some jolting going up I-395 in Connecticut and thought to check the tires, but figured it was just bad road. In retrospect, I think I had been riding the parking brake. It cleared up so I kept going. We drove probably 30 miles without having to stop or slow down.
When we came to this exit off 395 and 290 to get to I90 (Mass turnpike), I tried to slow down, but to my suprise the brakes had no effect at all and pushed to the floor, we kept going about 65 or 70. I was yelling that "WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!!" Carissa was surprisingly calm, she says "resigned to death". We went screeching and fishtailing around the corner. I was amazed that the van didn't flip over, utterly amazed. The back seemed to shift about 45 degrees in a split second. I'm convinced the back lifted off the ground for a second.
My next concern was: "now there are going to be cars stacked up at the bottom of this offramp and we are going to plow into them or I'm going to have to drive off into the trees and kill ourselves so we don't kill anyone else." I had no idea what was off the side of the road. A ledge maybe?
There were cars stacked, but fortunately, I saw a gap between the barrier and the cars so I took it, but this crossed into a two lane road with traffic both ways so thinking the only way to stop was to throw it into park, I did so thinking that it would destroy the van's tranny. Amazingly though, it didn't make a hideous sound and drop the transmission, like I expected and traffic seemingly opened just right. A car did have to slow down coming southbound and he honked, but we crossed the street and went into a gravel parking lot where the van came to a stop.
I immediately opened the door to see if there was anything wrong and a Mass staty pulled up.
"Where do you come off driving like that?! Do you know you almost hit 15 people?!"
I responded, "my brakes wouldn't work, I don't know what happened."
Still upset with me, he said "well do they work now? How did you stop?"
I said "I'm not sure, I put it in park maybe that did it. I don't know?"
"Well, does it work now?"
"I don't know"
The whole time, you know what was going through my head? I thought of the movie "We Were Soldiers". After he had this incredibly profound, intense and traumatic experience and had his "boys die", he had to face the press. They asked the colonel all these stupid questions that seemed incredibly pointless and inappropriate considering what he had just been through. He just looks at them in amazement and says nothing.
This is how I felt.
"Do I know I about hit 15 people? Duh, of course I do! Where were you? I'm the one driving."
He turned out alright. "Well if your van still works, wait a while, compose yourself and then you can go ahead."
Amazingly, it worked after we had been stopped for a half hour.
The transmission worked and the brakes worked so we finished our trip (maybe not the brightest thing, to keep going), but it was a neat temple experience.
After coming that close to death, it changes your perspective of the temple. That's for sure!