A View From Above (Car accident on Big Bend)

I was having an amazing dream. I was in a crowd, looking up onto the stage at a man singing. The energy of the crowd was enormous, and I knew as I chanted along with them that this guy was the one I had been waiting to hear sing. He came around to my side of the stage, and he was wearing boxer shorts with yellow duckies on them.

!!!!!!!

I bolted upright in bed and listened. Something huge had crashed downstairs. It sounded like a bookshelf or something had come down. I tried to shake Vin awake, but he mumbled and rolled over. So I grabbed my stun gun and left the room. (Yes, I am a safety girl.) First room, no one there. The second room seemed fine, also. I started to go downstairs and heard a noise toward our backyard, so I ran back upstairs and looked out back.

Wow. Anarchy on Big Bend. Cars everywhere, and in the middle of everything, there was a car that had run up over the curb and hit a tree. Not just hit the tree, but demolished the bottom of it, and the front of his car was toast. It looked like it had been through a blender.

By now traffic had stopped on both sides up and down Big Bend Rd. Right at rush hour, of course. I heard the sirens in the distance and wondered if the man was hurt badly. I could see his head upwards, so I knew he was not laying in a weird position in the car. A few people were now standing outside of his car looking in. The ambulance and 3 police cars pulled up.

I yelled at Vinny to come look, but he mumbled and pulled the covers over his head. I went and grabbed my camera to take a few pictures, not to share the morbidity with everyone, but to record the close proximity of this event. From my bedroom window, I felt like I could reach down and pluck the man from the wreckage. But of course if I could have done that, he would have reached St . John’s hospital a lot sooner.

They put him on a body board and then into the ambulance. I think he was badly banged up, but the body language of the rescue team was not frenetic. Since I am not skilled in emergency operations, that opinion holds no water. I am just optimistic.

Being the voyeur that I am, I went on watching as they took the man away. The detectives arrived and started talking to a few people about (I’m guessing) what had happened. Now their body language was frenetic. One man was making a straight up and down motion with both of his arms over and over again. I looked up to see if he was trying to wave in an airplane, but I guess he was trying to convey that the man was coming straight at him. Evidently this guy was really late for work (????) and tried to pass everyone on Big Bend. Doesn’t take alot of sense to know that that would not turn out well during rush hour traffic on a hill.

Now, I watch CSI and I figure a lot of people do. So we all know that when the detectives are around, you do not touch anything at the crime scene, right? Well, for some reason at this moment, the maintenance man of the apartment complex next to the wreck moseyed over with a bucket and one of those long metal rods with the clamps at the end. He started picking up random pieces of whatever was on the ground and must have picked up some wreckage, because the cop came running at him and started to wave his hands and yell. The maintenance man dropped the bucket like it had turned into a snake and shrugged his shoulders. He did not care if he did his job or not. He was still getting paid. Who was he to interfere with the cops? The law’s word superseded his boss’. The cops continued to wave their hands at him and yell and finally he stalked off to the apartments.

The finale of the morning came with the tow guy. He came to confiscate the car. Traffic was finally moving, albeit one lane style. People were going to definitely be late to the office today. Maybe this blog will vouch for a few. Anyway, the tow guy walked toward the final resting place of the car. (Ford? Buick? Dodge?) Who knew after this. As he walked to the tree, it was only then that I realized the front bumper was up in the branches!

This was amazing to see. He helped the female cop shimmy up and drag it down, and then proceeded down a small hill to fetch part of the hood, a tire, and a mirror. He was very meticulous, and only after every little peice of car had been thrown onto his truck, did he take off–leaving only a few mangled branches behind as evidence that any early morning helter-skelter had put a dent into West County rush hour.

All of this happened in exactly the first 50 minutes of my morning. It was going to be an interesting day, indeed.