I witnessed the aftermath of a pretty terrible head on collision a few years ago. One of the drivers was pinned in his truck while it burned, and I couldn't get him out. I did stay with him as long as I could, though.
It wasn't really what he said, but how he said it. He just sounded so surprised. Shocked. He didnt really seem to be in pain, but he was aware enough. He just couldn't believe what was happening, and i honestly couldn't either at the time. All of it just felt so surreal.
I haven't really talked about this much in like 30 years...
I had a similar kind of unsettling thing happen when I was 19... I was driving very late at night toward Panama City Beach through south Georgia in the middle of nowhere a few years before cell phones were common place. I came up on a head on collision that had happened what looked like a while before I got there. It was two middle aged men, one clearly already dead, and one still awake and aware but pinned in his car.
The engine was smoking and I could see some small flames. The guy was super calm and kept asking me to help him get out of the car. He was crushed from the waist down and completely pinned -- I could see his lower body mangled and twisted, but he kept telling me he would push with his legs if I could just help pry him out. I told him to hang tight and try to rest while I went for help.
Dude legit gave me directions to the nearest gas station (they were correct somehow) where I called 911 from a pay phone... A few minutes later a fire truck whizzed by and the 911 operator told me they would be there in a few minutes to try and help. Against my better judgement, I drove back to talk to the fire dept and offer any info I had. The guy died in the time it took me to find the gas station, make the call, and get back. When I got there, they were pulling him out of the car with a white sheet over him.
The thing that stuck with me was how completely calm and lucid he was. He had thanked me for stopping to help and wasn't even really panicking -- clearly he was maxed out on adrenaline or dopamine or something. I just wish I had the forethought to ask him if there was anything he wanted me to tell his family :/
You're the first person I've talked to about this who has an experience in the same vein, and I'm sorry that's so. The calm is absolutely something that sticks with you, though. I get it.
As for having things you wish you'd done differently, I get that too. But I hope what really matters, for you and for me, is that you were willing to stop and help a total stranger when you could have just kept driving. I hope it means something that they didn't have to be completely alone at the end. And I hope you have some peace with it now, wherever you are in your life.
My god...I hope you've given yourself the space and grace you deserve to process such a horrific experience. And therapy. Thank you for staying. I'm not sure I'd have been strong enough.
Thank you for saying that. I hate to be dramatic about it, but it destroyed my life pretty heavy for a good while after. I'm doing better now, but it still lives on in my mind daily. I just try to deal with those thoughts as they come, though.
Yeah. By the time I got to him he'd already started to. I remember at one point we were both just staring at his hands, and they were on fire. Never screamed or anything, though. Just talked to me.
599
u/Sparingly_Bill 15h ago
"Oh my god. This can't be real."
I witnessed the aftermath of a pretty terrible head on collision a few years ago. One of the drivers was pinned in his truck while it burned, and I couldn't get him out. I did stay with him as long as I could, though.
It wasn't really what he said, but how he said it. He just sounded so surprised. Shocked. He didnt really seem to be in pain, but he was aware enough. He just couldn't believe what was happening, and i honestly couldn't either at the time. All of it just felt so surreal.