A young woman-25 years old- died in a car accident at about 6:30pm two days ago... I happened to be sitting on the back stairs about a hundred yards away and heard the bang when her SUV hit a pole dead center. Moving at a casual pace I put on my shoes and walked past the scene about 3-4 minutes afterward, where bystanders were looking at her unconscious body sprawled on the front seat. Apparently she had hit the steering wheel/windshield? and fell over onto her back. I did not see any blood nor severe injuries and as I glanced in I overheard one of them remark " Yes, she has a pulse." When I walked past two police cars arrived, so one of the bystanders asked the officers if they had a CPR machine, to which the answer was no. I noticed the lack of urgency in the police, who spent about a minute surveying the traffic and assessing a dangling ( harmless ) telephone wire before looking at the victim. While I circled the block, having neither the medical experience to help nor wishing to gawk, I finally heard an ambulance arrive about 5 or 6 minutes after the moment of the crash. Of course, this was far too late if she had been breathless the whole time, and I later heard that she had died at the scene-probably of internal injuries. Further gossip confirmed that she had led a troubled life and possibly had blacked out or seizured-or even made a deliberate turn-before hitting the pole. Fortunately no one on the sidewalk was injured, for this was directly in front of a music store and a short distance from a dance studio where young girls had been assembling.
When I returned to the house after observing the scene, it occurred to me that despite my curiosity I had neglected to say a prayer for the woman and her family, which I immediately did, and in retrospect that was probably the precise moment of her dying...I guess I have no lasting feelings either way, for I saw many roadside memorials while I was walking the country, so this accident-although tragic to the family-is one more death to me. Supposedly there are more hospital acquired infections resulting in death every year than traffic deaths, so maybe our concerns about risk are misplaced anyway...better to just get on with living...
