We've all read stories about "good samaritans" who have rescued a driver from a burning car moments before it explodes, or something like that. Since I was a kid, I always wondered what was going through the minds of people who were responding to an emergency. Now I know what goes through your head:
nothing at all.
On December 21, at about 11:30 in the morning, BrokenMa and I were headed south on Route 95 in Virginia, just below the DC Beltway. We were going to visit my folks in North Carolina. Just as we passed the exit for Route 1, we saw a fireball explode across the highway in front of us, and then an immediate shower of all sorts of broken bits of some vehicle or other. It was maybe 200 feet in front of us. I stopped on the left shoulder, and turned to see what had happened. There were three 18-wheelers (the first two were box-trailers or reefers, and the last was an open-top trash-hauler) all stuck together in the center lane.
The first one had apparently stopped short for some reason, and the second had either hit it very lightly, or had been driven into it when struck by the third; either way, the first truck's cab was undamaged, and the second only had superficial front-end damage. But the third...holy gods, I'd never seen such a mess. The second truck must have been running empty, because when the third truck hit it, the back end came right up, and annihilated the third truck's cab. When they all came to a stop, the third truck's front axle was centered beneath the second truck's two rear axles, and there was a gap of only 15 inches or so between the second truck's trailer and the third truck's trailer. The third truck's cab had been completely flattened, and its engine had been pushed up
over the driver's compartment.
I remember thinking, "there's no way anyone in that third truck made it." That's the last thought I had, for the next many minutes, because I saw movement in there. There were other people who had stopped, but no one else seemed to have noticed that the #3 driver was moving. There was still some small fire on the front end of the tractor, but I didn't notice it (BrokenMa mentioned it to me after the fact). I ran up to the driver-side door while BrokenMa called 911, and I could see that the driver was alive, but the cab was so crushed I was afraid he was either completely crushed himself, or otherwise missing significant parts of himself. He was delerious (of course), and wondered what happened. I told him there'd been a little accident[0], but that he'd be OK, and that help was coming.
He was calm enough for a while, but then he began to get frantic, saying he had to get out. The door was crushed shut and wasn't budging (I'd checked), and the windshield was only 10 inches from the back of the cab. Somehow he'd managed to avoid being pinned by the steering wheel, too; it was only about 5 inches from the back of the driver's seat, but he was off to the right a bit, leaning over the top of it. I tried to keep him from moving much, in case he'd had a spinal injury, but he decided that he had to get out
right now, because he felt like he was burning. The coolant from the engine (which was above him, remember) was pouring down into the cab and onto him. There was no real way for me to help him get out, at first, because there was no room at all. I expected that it'd take the Jaws of Life to get that cab open.
He managed to push with his feet and pull himself with his arms, and inch by inch he wiggled himself out of that cab. It turned out that he was just an extremely skinny guy. By then, there were three other guys there by the cab with me, and we supported him as he got out, and carried him to the side of the road and put him down.
Through the whole thing, I don't remember thinking, or wondering what to do, or anything at all. I remember everything with perfect clarity, but I remember nothing at all of my own mind-state.
That was the first time I'd been in a situation where
everything in my mind seemed to revert to instinct; there was no thought involved. I saw what needed to be done, and I did it.
The driver was taken via MedEvac to Fairfax Hospital, and a few days later I called to see if he was still there, but they didn't have anyone by his name at that time. I don't know if that means that he'd been released, or if he'd died there, or even if he never made it there at all. It'd be nice to know.
I was extremely impressed by the volunteer fire/rescue folks who responded. Because my car was pretty much blocked in by the ambulances and fire trucks and the helicopter, I got to watch all of them do their thing.
A half hour later, back on the road, I got the shakes, and I almost had to pull over for a while. I don't know how fire/rescue and police do it...responding to situations like that all the time. I suppose they must get used to it.
Anyway, the point of this rambling story is the fact that when I was in the situation, I felt my emotions and hesitations and worries just unhook from my mind, and just leave the part of me that knew what needed to be done. It was a heck of a sensation.
Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon in times of stress?
-BP
- It was surreal hearing myself describe the situation like that