My day: a horrible car crash, and a dose of humanity

[Aussie George]

Thanks all for the support and replies...I don't think I was a hero, honestly, just a concerned driver helping out. I would hope that, if I find myself on the other end of that situation, people would stop to try and help me. Kels, I can imagine how frustrating it is for you guys to try and get to the scene as fast as possible...I can't even imagine what it is like for a victim.

If you think it would be bad for the victim to wait that ten minutes, imagine what it would have been like if no-one had stopped.

Great job and well done.

It may pay to call the hospital and get in contact with the people. I only say that as I had a motorcycle accident one time and was lying on the road bleeding and a passer-by stopped as you did and helped me out until the ambulance and police arrived. In all the mayhem, I never got to say thanks. And to top it off, it was raining and cold, and the woman who comforted me left me her scarfe. I still have it. I tried afterwards to find the woman but to no avail. It would have meant a lot to me, just to say thanks for the five minutes of her life she didn't have to give me. I was lying face down on a road and never even saw her face. That was 1993 and I still remember it like yesterday.

Again, well done, and great job.

[Hitokage]

Oscarsjava:

When I was 20, I was in Philadelphia. It was near finals and my roommate, Val, and I were walking to the Wawa at about 11 p.m. There is a four way intersection that has N and S bound traffic going one way, and only E going the other.

We stopped at the corner for the red light. I look over to the other light and see it's green. I watched an asian girl walking into the street from the same corner we were on crossing the E bound traffic (which had a red light at that moment), and her light turned yellow.

Expecting my light to turn green, I look back to my light and wait to cross the street. Suddenly, I heard this... this squealing. It was louder then any brake squealing I had ever heard in my life.

I got to look up in time to see a car (brakes squealing) glide through the intersection... and hit the asian girl straight on.

The girl got hit up into the air and landed with this sickening sound on her back that I will never, ever, ever forget. I froze for a second. It was just Val and I in this whole intersection. I literally threw my phone to my friend screaming to call 911 as I ran out in the intersection just barely in time to wave my arms and stop a second car from running the woman over. The car stopped probably about 10 feet from me and, thank god, STOPPED, blocking the accident.

The car that had hit the girl DID NOT STOP until about 100 feet down the road - in a place with a 25 MPH speed limit. She had been going that fast. I knelt by the girl as the car that had stopped started directing traffic away from what had happened.

The girl was staring at nothing, bleeding from the mouth, a leg twisted at an angle beneath her. I started calling to her, then realized she was breathing.

There had to be some sort of angel looking over that girl because the very next person on the scene was a doctor/nurse in training from the teaching medical school nearby. She knelt beside the girl and started to get everything going to save her life. I knelt there... it was the most changing moment of my life.

Val walked into the street and grabbed me, pulling me to the curb. When the police arrived with an ambulance (which felt like forever but was really 3 minutes from Val's 911 call), they told me I probably saved the girl's life by stopping the second car from hitting her. The second car had told the cops that he had not even seen the body in the street.

I tried, all night, to find out that girl's name. Even down to the ambulance that took her in. But no one would even tell me her name. Despite being the only witnesses, we never got a call from the cops for a court date or anything. I watched the news, never found out what happened to her.

What you did... was exactly what you should have done. You very selflessly crossed traffic, tried to help. You don't have medical training (CPR is great though) and kept the guy CONSCIOUS! That might have saved his life.

The 911 - busy thing is... very scary. The heck? How can 911 be BUSY?

[BJJVad]

As it turns out, nobody knew what this vehicle hit, nobody pulled over with any type of body damage to their vehicle, and the driver hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. As a matter of fact, the force of the impact was so hard that when he was ejected, he took the steering wheel and column with him - we found it 30 feet from him, airbag limp. Some of the witnesses who pulled over said that they had seen the car fly by them going at least 90 - maybe they blew a tire, or hit some debris in the road?

Did you notice if they were "Firestone" tires? :eek: