A Matter of Timing...
My timing seems to be very impeccably - strange.
I seem to be in a lot of the right places at the right time with little or no effort on my part. The stroke of "luck" stuff... Meeting people I want to meet, TV appearances, music videos, stage performances, making connections, monitary benefits, all that fun stuff...
But I also have this eerie reoccurance of being around really bad accidents - before the emergency crews arrive. I seem to pass right after they happen, just in time to see the gore before the cops block it off or clean it up. And I'm talking real life now - not my fucked up dreams. There's the dude that caught a bullet in the cranium and was laying in a puddle of bloody brain slop. Cops put a jacket over his head and stood around with their hands on their hips. Another time, I was leaving a club and some careless addict OD'd in his car. Then the numerous bad car wrecks. I usually catch a glimpse of someone stumbling dizzily out of their crushed vehicle with rivlets of crimson, or sitting in shock with a busted nose behind half deflated airbags. One of the more memorable ones was a big rigg with a car nearly flattened under its wheels, and you know no one got out of that one.
Today - which prompted me to write this - I got to witness a car compacted to half its normal size between another car and a concrete barrier - the offending driver peering into the crushed car he apparently hit and looking absolutely mortified. You couldn't see the other driver, but he was looking in at something that caused him to double over and scream.
The humane part of me tells me I should stop to help - and I want to - but there's usually other people running up already. The extent of my first-aid knowledge is useful, but I don't know that I could save someone's life. Then again, I've never tried. I've saved my dog, but not a human. I shouldn't be there if I'm not doing something useful. So, on I go... It seems pretty callous to keep driving, so I've decided next time I'll stop. That way at very least I can offer - or at least try - to do something. I know very well the feeling of being in an accident, watching cars go by and thinking, "Why doesn't anyone stop?!"
Even if there's nothing to be done, if I stop I'll be more at ease knowing I tried...
I seem to be in a lot of the right places at the right time with little or no effort on my part. The stroke of "luck" stuff... Meeting people I want to meet, TV appearances, music videos, stage performances, making connections, monitary benefits, all that fun stuff...
But I also have this eerie reoccurance of being around really bad accidents - before the emergency crews arrive. I seem to pass right after they happen, just in time to see the gore before the cops block it off or clean it up. And I'm talking real life now - not my fucked up dreams. There's the dude that caught a bullet in the cranium and was laying in a puddle of bloody brain slop. Cops put a jacket over his head and stood around with their hands on their hips. Another time, I was leaving a club and some careless addict OD'd in his car. Then the numerous bad car wrecks. I usually catch a glimpse of someone stumbling dizzily out of their crushed vehicle with rivlets of crimson, or sitting in shock with a busted nose behind half deflated airbags. One of the more memorable ones was a big rigg with a car nearly flattened under its wheels, and you know no one got out of that one.
Today - which prompted me to write this - I got to witness a car compacted to half its normal size between another car and a concrete barrier - the offending driver peering into the crushed car he apparently hit and looking absolutely mortified. You couldn't see the other driver, but he was looking in at something that caused him to double over and scream.
The humane part of me tells me I should stop to help - and I want to - but there's usually other people running up already. The extent of my first-aid knowledge is useful, but I don't know that I could save someone's life. Then again, I've never tried. I've saved my dog, but not a human. I shouldn't be there if I'm not doing something useful. So, on I go... It seems pretty callous to keep driving, so I've decided next time I'll stop. That way at very least I can offer - or at least try - to do something. I know very well the feeling of being in an accident, watching cars go by and thinking, "Why doesn't anyone stop?!"
Even if there's nothing to be done, if I stop I'll be more at ease knowing I tried...
posted by Strange Little Girl at 8:14 PM
Ouch =(
That's a difficult decision to make. Even if you have first aid knowledge. At that point, even the slightest thing may make a difference between life or death, and one can hope the EMTs are trained properly to take a care in that position. I myself have never seen something like that, and I don't know how I would react to such a thing. It's so difficult to actually be a help in that kind of a situation, since like you mentioned, there are usually people running up and they tend to just be in the way. But there is that chance you do help and make a difference and I think that in itself can be rewarding.