Tragedy Touched Us Yesterday

Yesterday’s conference was wonderful, and choir rehearsal in the evening went splendidly. I was on top of the world when driving home from church, all ready to tuck the kids in and finish my Reader’s Digest before tucking myself in for a good, healthy sleep. That changed.

As I turned off of the main road onto the secondary road that leads to our house, I noticed a lot of cars parked on the street ahead, and people all milling about in the road. I thought it was a party. School is out, or getting close to it, and there are lots of end-of-the-year bashes going on. I slowed down to 15 mph and was driving through the cars when I glanced off to the right to see what the huge conglomeration of people in the front yard of the corner house were up to.

There is a huge oak tree in the yard, about 50 feet from the sidewalk. Around it was wrapped a small car — well, I think it was a small car. It might have been a mid-size car once. It was small now, and it was smoking in the front. I parked about 100 feet up the road and told the kids to stay put. I’m a Red Cross instructor, and the kids know that when Mommy sees an accident, she puts on her “teacher” clothes and does first aid if she can. I grabbed my first aid kit from the trunk and strode over to the yard.

A girl — age 17 to 22, I think — was standing next to the tree, some five feet from the car saying, “No, don’t say that! My poor baby!” So I instantly went to the car, thinking there’s a baby in a car seat in there. Nope. There was a guy trapped, face-down, in the front seat. An 18-to-24 year-old man. His legs were across the driver’s side of the seat, but his head was face down under the buckled passenger-side dashboard and door. I announced to the people gathered around the passenger-side door that I’m trained in first aid, and asked if I might help. A man with a bright flashlight said, “Please. We can’t get him out; what do we need to do?”

“Someone call 9-1-1,” I said as I reached in through the broken and twisted window frame and touched the only piece of skin I could reach — the back of the driver’s left arm. It was still warm, and I thought I could feel a very weak brachial pulse. But I wasn’t sure, and I could not see if he was breathing — I don’t think he was, as his back didn’t seem to be rising and falling, but it’s very hard to tell with people who’ve been drinking, because their breathing is much shallower than normal. And this guy had obviously been drinking. The smell of beer in the car was unmistakable, and very strong. I wanted so much to turn him over to check his airway and breathing, but there was no room. He was a tall guy, about 5’9″ or 5’10”, and he was rather hefty. And there was only about 15 inches of front seat left. We couldn’t turn him. There was no way to get him out of the car. The doors were so badly buckled that I knew the firemen would have to cut him out. I stood there with my hand on his arm for several minutes, periodically making ineffectual tugs at the door. Finally, the paramedics arrived and took over. They were hampered by the door problem as well, but we could hear the fire trucks coming by now, too.

Knowing that I could do nothing for the man at this point, I walked over to where the girl had been — I’m guessing she was his girlfriend — thinking that she had seemed so upset that it was likely she would go into shock, and we ought to check on her. Well, if she was his girlfriend, she couldn’t have loved him much, because she had left — she’d been drinking, someone said, and she didn’t want to meet any cops. As I walked back to my car, another guy caught up with me to thank me. “I was in the car he sideswiped,” he said. “Thanks for stopping to help.”  I asked him if he or his friend were hurt, and he said, “No, but it’s a miracle. He was driving like a maniac. He hit us and then plowed into that tree. His girlfriend was stinking drunk — so he probably was, too.”

At that point, the fire trucks were arriving, so I decided it was time to go. Get my kids and my car out of the way and let the professionals do their job of sorting out the mess, writing citations, and getting the wounded some care. So I drove home, thinking what a waste it was. Here’s a kid whose life is just beginning, and he’s (most likely) dead now. For what? One night’s “fun.” And if he’s not dead, he’s certainly going to be in hospital for a very long time, and will probably have some serious rehab to go through. Not to mention the stain on his driving record, and the probable criminal record for DUI.

I don’t know. I’m still a bit shaken myself, I guess. I keep seeing that one bit of white skin in a mass of twisted metal, and the back of his head, with curly red-brown hair, trapped in the door. It’s just such a shame. Such a shame.

Tags: CPR, drunk driving, tragedy, True Stories