Four days on, Fred Gardner is shaken, sore, and still stunned after surviving a horrifying single vehicle accident near Yerong Creek.
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On Monday night, the Wagga City Wanderers striker was on his way home from a soccer tournament in Melbourne - content after scoring the winning goal for his team to claim a 2-1 victory in the final of the Assyrian Cup tournament - when a lone cow stepped out of the dark and onto an otherwise empty Olympic Highway, right into the path of Gardner's Subaru.
"A massive cow!" Gardner recalls.
"It just popped out at the last minute. If I hit it, I would've been gone. I just decided to swerve. The car rolled four times. The next thing I know is a guy is pulling me out of the car, rang the ambulance and I was in hospital."
Gardner has seven stitches in the back of his head and is still experiencing dizziness. He has deep bruising to his leg, his right arm's in a sling and significant soreness in his shoulder, back and chest.
Unbelievably, though, there are no broken bones or more serious injuries. A committed Catholic, he has only one word for it.
"It's just a miracle," he says.
"I'm lucky to be alive, really… God is watching over me, that's all I can say."
In fact, miraculous is his best description for the whole scenario.
All of the vehicle's airbags went off and the car was totalled but, fortunately, the rear was more badly damaged than the front, the driver's door was the only one that could be opened and, although he hadn't seen another car in either direction for some time, a pair of Good Samaritans turned up within minutes.
They even answered a phone call from Gardner's father who happened to ring at the critical moment.
"I was knocked out. All I can remember is a guy and his wife pulled over and rescued me from the car and called the ambulance, spoke to my old man on the phone - told them that I was okay," Gardner says.
"The ambulance turned up and they left… I would love to thank them if I knew who they were."
Needless to say, Gardner won't be playing in the Wanderers' first FFA Cup match of the year on Saturday, against Canberra White Eagles in Cootamundra.
He'll concentrate on his recovery, aiming for the start of the Wanderers' first NPL season in three weeks time.
In the meantime, he'll continue to be thankful that it wasn't a whole lot worse.
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