The Accident
Yesterday my husband and I were on our way down I-15 to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. We were late, as usual, and we were supposed to meet our very anal son who starts complaining that we’re going to be late the minute we make plans to meet anywhere. “I KNOW you’re not going to be on time.” He says this to set me up so that I make all kinds of ridiculous promises about being early so as to be ultra-prompt—as if there is such a thing as “more than prompt.”
I was dozing, my usual method of dealing with boring situations when I can’t stand in front of the fridge and wonder what I can eat. Suddenly Clay slammed on the brakes and said, “I saw a body.”
I started up thinking for a minute that he must have hit some crazy person who’d decided to run across the road. Then for some reason I worried that he’d hit a porcupine.
A huge cloud of dust lay across the median. We parked on the left side of the road on the median and started racing across the road, Clay explaining as we ran that a car had just flipped over the road and the medium in front of us and a woman had shot out of it “like she’d been shot from a cannon.”
Not to be selfish here, but I am not the person you want to have in an accident. I usually get weak in the knees and I have been known to faint when my children have received shots. So I was somewhat self-conscious about how badly I was going to react, more concerned that I would be more a problem myself than a solution.
The car had flipped from the south bound lane to the outside edge of the north bound lane. We were among the first people there. A green Suburban with three little boys inside was parked near the body and another man had stopped further down the road and was direction traffic around the accident. A small orange car sat upright ahead of us, windows shattered, doors crushed. Inside a man with a bloody face sat with his head down. A woman from one of the cars had a cell phone and was already talking to 911.
We walked back down the road to the woman who had been thrown from the car. She lay like a dropped rag doll. She wasn’t breathing and I was relieved that she might be dead. I didn’t want to have to help her. I didn’t want her to be there lying facedown on that hard gravel. Everyone else walked back to the car and I was left alone with her. I could hear the wind blowing across the highway and I heard a couple of cars drive by. My husband came back to pull me out of the roadway but I felt like I wanted to throw myself down on the road and protect her from any further harm, the only thing I was certain I could manage.
I had absolutely no idea what to do, but I knew I wasn’t going to leave her there alone. I couldn’t remember a single thing from any of the first aid classes I’ve ever had. Just she and I, this perfect stranger that I wanted to comfort but didn’t know how. Then suddenly breath started to burble out of her and I felt panic. I looked around for someone else to show now and take charge.
Miraculously, the did. A strange looking woman leapt from a passing car. She had on a garish Las Vegas tee shirt and denim capris that were too small for her large body. Her fingernails were inches long and they had designs painted on them. “I’m an ER nurse.” She bent over the girl and said in a cheerful voice, “Everything’s going to be alright, honey.” She looked around and said to me, “Get me something to clear this blood away so she can breathe.” I took off my pink linen shirt from Dillard’s and gave it to her and she began to mop the roadway with it and the girl’s face. “We need some blankets, has anyone got something we can wrap her in?”
Another nurse showed up in a sleeveless red tank top with blue jean shorts. Then an off-duty sheriff was on the phone describing the injuries as a “Level One” and saying the needed to contact Life Flight. I went behind the Suburban and hid there in my tank top until my husband got me another shirt from the car.
In short order others came. Someone from a newspaper set up and waited, staring into the distance, for the crucial shot when they would pick up the girl and put her in the ambulance. Three motorcycle riders stopped and took a look around before they drove off. A cop came and then a whole army of policemen raced up.
The girl’s name was Kelly. The ambulance came from Scipio in less than 20 minutes and by then the rag doll was a living, breathing girl, surrounded by strangers who were taking care of her. A big black truck driver on his way from Vegas stopped and ambled over to me to ask what happened. He was part of the team that lifted her into the ambulance. A young man with “U.S. Marines” tattooed on his shoulder whispered word of comfort in her ear. Strangers helped the ambulance crew put a brace on her broken legs and hip.
My pink shirt was laying on the highway after she left and I picked it up and put it in a black plastic bag in the back of the car.
I called the hospital but they can’t give out information unless you’re a relative.
I was dozing, my usual method of dealing with boring situations when I can’t stand in front of the fridge and wonder what I can eat. Suddenly Clay slammed on the brakes and said, “I saw a body.”
I started up thinking for a minute that he must have hit some crazy person who’d decided to run across the road. Then for some reason I worried that he’d hit a porcupine.
A huge cloud of dust lay across the median. We parked on the left side of the road on the median and started racing across the road, Clay explaining as we ran that a car had just flipped over the road and the medium in front of us and a woman had shot out of it “like she’d been shot from a cannon.”
Not to be selfish here, but I am not the person you want to have in an accident. I usually get weak in the knees and I have been known to faint when my children have received shots. So I was somewhat self-conscious about how badly I was going to react, more concerned that I would be more a problem myself than a solution.
The car had flipped from the south bound lane to the outside edge of the north bound lane. We were among the first people there. A green Suburban with three little boys inside was parked near the body and another man had stopped further down the road and was direction traffic around the accident. A small orange car sat upright ahead of us, windows shattered, doors crushed. Inside a man with a bloody face sat with his head down. A woman from one of the cars had a cell phone and was already talking to 911.
We walked back down the road to the woman who had been thrown from the car. She lay like a dropped rag doll. She wasn’t breathing and I was relieved that she might be dead. I didn’t want to have to help her. I didn’t want her to be there lying facedown on that hard gravel. Everyone else walked back to the car and I was left alone with her. I could hear the wind blowing across the highway and I heard a couple of cars drive by. My husband came back to pull me out of the roadway but I felt like I wanted to throw myself down on the road and protect her from any further harm, the only thing I was certain I could manage.
I had absolutely no idea what to do, but I knew I wasn’t going to leave her there alone. I couldn’t remember a single thing from any of the first aid classes I’ve ever had. Just she and I, this perfect stranger that I wanted to comfort but didn’t know how. Then suddenly breath started to burble out of her and I felt panic. I looked around for someone else to show now and take charge.
Miraculously, the did. A strange looking woman leapt from a passing car. She had on a garish Las Vegas tee shirt and denim capris that were too small for her large body. Her fingernails were inches long and they had designs painted on them. “I’m an ER nurse.” She bent over the girl and said in a cheerful voice, “Everything’s going to be alright, honey.” She looked around and said to me, “Get me something to clear this blood away so she can breathe.” I took off my pink linen shirt from Dillard’s and gave it to her and she began to mop the roadway with it and the girl’s face. “We need some blankets, has anyone got something we can wrap her in?”
Another nurse showed up in a sleeveless red tank top with blue jean shorts. Then an off-duty sheriff was on the phone describing the injuries as a “Level One” and saying the needed to contact Life Flight. I went behind the Suburban and hid there in my tank top until my husband got me another shirt from the car.
In short order others came. Someone from a newspaper set up and waited, staring into the distance, for the crucial shot when they would pick up the girl and put her in the ambulance. Three motorcycle riders stopped and took a look around before they drove off. A cop came and then a whole army of policemen raced up.
The girl’s name was Kelly. The ambulance came from Scipio in less than 20 minutes and by then the rag doll was a living, breathing girl, surrounded by strangers who were taking care of her. A big black truck driver on his way from Vegas stopped and ambled over to me to ask what happened. He was part of the team that lifted her into the ambulance. A young man with “U.S. Marines” tattooed on his shoulder whispered word of comfort in her ear. Strangers helped the ambulance crew put a brace on her broken legs and hip.
My pink shirt was laying on the highway after she left and I picked it up and put it in a black plastic bag in the back of the car.
I called the hospital but they can’t give out information unless you’re a relative.
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