I thought that my morning was bad when I woke at 13.4 and then arrived at work 45 minutes later at 6:30am to write a presentation. That said though, I had to quickly reassess because while I was doing my usual morning peruse through the headlines on The New Zealand Herald site this morning I found an article about some poor guy that has driven his Mercedes into two cars and then ended up in the front a designer clothes shop on Ponsonby Road. Cause you ask? it was (and I quote) “a diabetic attack”.

I have two points here, the first of which is that I truthfully find the term ‘diabetic attack’ quite stupid and ignorant and the second (and more important) is that I feel so sorry for the guy driving the car!

Several times in my driving life I’ve found myself plummeting from what was an acceptable BGL into the 2’s of 3’s with no apparent reason as has Nic (see this post) and so I can completely empathise with this poor guy who, by reason of NZ law on driving while hypoglycaemic, will potentially be charged with a driving offence and suffer the resultant fines, convictions etc.

It could be any of us couldn’t it. Take me this morning for example after I took my usual correction for my 13.4 causing me to drop way down to 4.1 just 45 minutes later for absolutely no apparent reason. Another 5 minutes and I would have been hypo and once you’re in that state you could be sitting in a flying bed over Africa and you wouldn’t know the difference. He might not have even known his ‘diabetic attack’ was coming and once he was hypo I’m quite certain that he wouldn’t have had his wits about him enough to stop his car and trailer on Ponsonby Road (which is like navigating your way through a defensive driving course at the best of times) to take come glucose.

So, for the second time this week, I’m giving a sympathy vote out and it’s going to Sally Ridge’s stepfather who I really, really hope doesn’t come to too much grief over this.

If you are keen to read the full article then you’ll find it here.

- Aaron