Car Accident -New respect for Paladin

Today while I was driving my daughter and her two friends to school at 5 minutes till 7, I heard a horn honk and looked in my rear view mirror to see one car broadside another.

We turned around to see if we could help in any way and at first glance everyone looked alllright. All three people involved in the accident were each on their own cell phone, conscious, but when I asked if they were alright, it was clear none of them were able to speak or think clearly. The woman who drove one car was emotionally frantic and panicking. Her passenger had an injured leg and was able to call 911, but unable to tell them where he was or what he needed so I took the phone and gave them our location and everyone's condition and asked them to send an ambulance.

A family friend drove by with a van of kids going to the same school my daughter goes to so I asked if he could take the girls in my van with him and he did.

...the man in the car that was broadsided was still on the phone with whoever he'd been talking to at the time he made his driving error and spoke a few incoherrent words, but looked dazed, then began slipping in and out of consciousness due to shock.

His door was crushed and I tried to keep him awake and talking...I know I was irritating him because at one point he rolled up his window, then fell asleep again, woke up, grabbed his neck in pain and tried to start his car but I told him not to start the car, that an ambulance was coming for him. He rolled his window down and then he tried to open his door and it was stuck. He lost consciousness again and I thought, "Dont you have a heart attack or stop breathing on me. " I didn't want him to move till the ambulance came, but I began wondering how I could crawl through the passenger door and get him out of there if he stopped breathing or if I could recline his seat all the way to give him CPR and then I wondered if I even remembered how to do it correctly.

The woman driver on the phone was frantic and crying about the man who wasn't speaking or looking at us now and I told her he was in shock, that an ambulance was on the way for him and that she was fine. I told her I would stay with her until the ambulance got there. I don't know where those words came from because I felt pretty useless and helpless myself, but she seemed to take comfort and calm down.

So I continued talking and making sure the man trapped in the car stayed conscious and the ambulance arrived first. I told the EMTwho approached me first what was going on with each person there and he asked me to stay and speak with police. A police officer took my contact information and we discussed what happened...I was remembering everything from my rear view mirror so we had to trace back a bit and found the skid marks on the road where one car had pushed the other down the street a ways.

Pally, you do this stuff every day as part of your job. YOU ROCK!

 

You're sweet, argy. I just happened to be there. I think everyone here would have done the same or better. It made me really think about people like Paladin choose to be there.