Travel

So, we made yet another road trip sans kids. This time we both left them, for the first time, to go to a wedding in Charlotte. The wedding was great (Congrats Nap and Amelia!), but we were anxious to get home after it all. In fact, Jason was so anxious, that he was pulled for doing 86 in a 65 zone just outside of Charlotte. Sweet. I don't know why he can't figure out cruise control. Luckily, the cop was nice and dropped it to 74 and sent us our merry way with only a fine-yielding sort of ticket.

The rest of the way was pretty tame, until this moron came flying by our car, weaving in and out of traffic. I was just telling Jason that it was (I'll use nice words here) "morons" like him that get people killed when, surprise of all surprises, he lost control, went all over the lanes and ended up flipping 3 times on the side of the road. In the interest of sensitive readers, Oh Poo. We pulled over, and I ran out of the car, yelling at Jason to call 911. I stopped cold when I saw the wreckage and heard the sounds. I did NOT want to be a part of what was happening. Luckily, quite a few others stopped too, and people dove into action, trying to see if anyone was alive, beating out windows, bandaging those getting cut on glass. We did what we could, Jason made the report to 911, I helped the guy who bashed out all the glass to get some bandages so he wasn't bleading, etc... until the driver got out, obviously intoxicated, and started trying to pull people out of the wreckage. When we told him not to (neck injuries and such), he started getting crazy.

Another woman came up and started screaming about "her baby" and it just started to spiral out of control. As there was now a small army of people gathered, Jason and I figured we were only in the way (by then a nurse and off-duty paramedic were there), that the drama was going to lead to trouble and that we didn't want to be there for it, so we went on. We were so in shock, it didn't even dawn on us until much further down the road (after hitting a squirrel - darn rodents) that we should have left a statement.

I don't know why, but I seem to come upon these horrific accidents about once a year or so. I've seen a woman with a stop sign through her head who (we think) had a seizure while driving, a drunk woman in a ditch upside down, two elderly couples in a minivan that catapulted of 81... plus many minor accidents. Are they just way more prevelant these days, or am I just "lucky"?

I usually do much better in these types of situations. I stay calm, help out, leave a report, whatever. But this time around, I was freaking out internally. I think it's because I knew there were kids in there, and could see that I couldn't help and that it was bad. One girls eyes are still haunting me as I lay down to bed at night - I'm so anxious to know if she made it out ok. I've been reading the accident reports, but have seen no mention of this one. I hope that everyone in that vehicle is OK. I also kind of hope that someone beat the crap out of the guy that was driving before the cops got there. But that's a commentary I won't get into.

Next weekend is air travel to Chicago. Let's hope it is MUCH less eventful.