Punched in the Head by a Fistful of Glass on a Moroccan Train

Ever wondered what happens when an object, say a stone, hits a train window at high velocity when you're seated next to it? Me, too, and I found out the hard way. In short, someone threw or sling-shot a rock that hit the window next to me. I absorbed the brunt of the small glass explosion and it left me dazed as it walloped my right temple and side of my face. The rock did not penetrate the glass, but its impact shot large shards of glass at my head and shoulders in a concentrated area above my ear. I've been knocked around a few times in my life, and I don't believe my head has ever been hit this hard. I was showered and coated with glass. My understanding is that glass of this sort, as in cars, is produced so that it won't shatter with jagged edges as with windows or mirrors. Even after a day, I was a bit shaken up when thinking of it, and it reminds me of the film Babel except I wasn't shot and left to die in a Moroccan village. ETA: After 36 hours, I still managed to pick two pieces of glass out of my scalp.

I debated on whether I should record this on the raptor space. I decided that it was acceptable as long as I stated that I do not believe this incident is representative of Morocco, the Arab speaking world, or Africa. It was a fluke and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Think of the odds.

When I boarded the train headed to Rabat, I picked a compartment and settled in across from a quiet man who stared out the window from the majority of the trip. Our window, however, was fractured from a hit at the bottom of the window. I thought that it was a neat image and, like a silly boy, I thought up foolish metaphors for my life, the trip, and the spider webbed window. Eventually, we were joined by several women, including a young woman named Hind who taught English to high schoolers in Meknes. Thanks to her flawless English, we struck up a conversation. We heard a thud on the rough shortly after she boarded and as we zipped past small villages. She explained that it was local kids throwing rocks at the train, and at that point I realized what precipitated the fragmented window. We continued our chat, for we had no reason to believe that the thud foreshadowed what would occur.

At a lull in our conversation I leaned forward and glanced down at my shoes. Seconds later I heard a loud crack that was followed immediately by a large wallop on my right temple. My head swung violently to the left as I felt as though someone had walked up and punched me in the side of the head. In a daze, I looked around amid the screaming and wondered "what in the hell happened." I didn't see any blood but my first thought was that it was a gun shot, and then I became aware of the immense pain on the right side of my head. I looked at the window and the woman screaming next to me and felt the glass on my face, head, hands, back, and neck. I checked all those surfaces for blood as Hind repeatedly asked "are you okay? are you OKAY?" I nodded and said yeah, yeah, I'm okay as I started to brush off the glass.

The women and some teenagers in the walkway stood me up and started brushing, picking, and wiping glass off of me from the shoulders up. I noticed that I had the majority of glass as I looked around at all the people in the compartment. There were several apologies and an explanation ensued that someone threw a rock and managed--by some stroke of luck--to hit our window. I took the brunt of the glass explosion. Although I wasn't closest to the window, the woman next to me was sitting back and thanks to my lean forward my head was almost even with the impact point and nothing more than a foot away from the window. (We were all packed in tightly.) It appeared that the glass was similar to buckshot or birdshot as it leaves the barrel. In other words, the shards were concentrated due to my proximity, which is why I had large and fine pieces of the window lodged in my hair and down my neck and back, and almost no one else had similar levels of glass coating them.

The conductor showed up later and claimed that there was nothing he could do, according to Hind. I couldn't help but be struck by the difference in how this incident would have been met in the US, partially courtesy of a litigious society. I'm a bit perplexed as to the explanation and treatment, yet I thought it was better to not throw a fit and be the demanding American. Even though I felt disjointed and foggy, I thought I was good enough to hop in a cab and call my father-in-law for reassurance as to my condition. He said that since I wasn't knocked unconscious or hit by the rock or object, a concussion wasn't likely even though I might feel limited physical effects from the hit.

So that's my war story. I seem to have the strangest luck when traveling. I'm not sure what it was that hit the window, and it's plausible that a rock thrown or aimed correctly with a sling shot could have generated the explosion of glass. The only certainty that I'm left with is that I was hit incredibly hard in the side of the head and feel very fortunate to return to the US and for my life, whatever problems I face.