The Accident

On Thursday (this was last month) we headed to my daughter's who lives in Arizona. My son Joe wanted to introduce me to Fred's Burgers and since I had never been there I was eager to try it. We had Fred's Burgers in sight and started turning right. As we turned we saw a man lying in the middle of the road. No one was helping him and cars were going around him. I couldn't quite wrap my head around what was actually happening. I said to Joe, "What is going on? This man is obviously hurt yet no one is helping him." I decided we had to pull into the shopping center and go to him to see if there was something we could do. As we were pulling in we saw a young man run from one of the stores to help the man, but I don't know what happened to him, maybe he was the one who called 911. The man had been on a bicycle and was hit by a delivery truck. The delivery truck pulled into the same shopping center parking lot where we were. The accident had just happened, we just didn't see the impact, we saw the after impact.




I got out of my van leaving my son to himself and ran out to the man. He was lying on his right side, his bike wrapped somewhat around him, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. I wanted to pray, but I didn't even know where to start. "Dear Jesus, help this man." was about all I could manage to pull together in my mind. I assessed his situation and tried to process what I was seeing and what had just happened. He was breathing, but his breathing was sort of a choking gasping desperate attempt at getting air. He was not coherent, his body was just breathing, loudly. Near his head was a puddle of liquid, a mix of blood and alcohol, probably vodka by the strong smell. There was an empty fifth bottle of something near his head and a forty ounce can of beer probably at the point of impact. Since he was bleeding and obviously hurt very seriously I didn't want to touch him, what would I have done? I thought about just lying my hand on him and praying, but I didn't. Another man in an orange shirt, possibly a Cals Tran worker was now on the scene with me, and he was about to touch the guy when bystanders on the curb were yelling at him not to touch the guy or anything at the scene. They didn't know if his neck was broken or not. So he didn't touch him either. What a helpless feeling, someone obviously needs help but we were woefully inadequate to help him.



I walked over to two men on the other side of the street from where we parked, they were right in front of Fred's Burgers and I asked them if they thought we should divert the traffic down the alley. They shrugged and didn't know, so I took matters into my own hands and started directing traffic around the scene. The smell of alcohol was overwhelming. It took all the strength I had not to vomit. Just as I was about to step away because of the smell I saw the police car lights and heard the sirens screaming towards us. I quickly ran to the side of the street where Joe was, and he was now standing on the curb waiting for me.



The first police officers and paramedics arrived and as they got to the man and noticed he was breathing they encouraged him to "stay with them." This poor man was still not coherent. He had no idea what was going on. As they were preparing him and themselves to take him to the hospital Joe and I decided to leave. We were on our way to my daughter's and needed to drive about three hundred twenty miles. Before we got in the car we walked over to the delivery truck that hit him and saw a big impact indentation where the windshield was shattered. I'm guessing this man cut across traffic as he approached the corner or was leaving the corner to get to the other side of the street. He must have either been going to the local park where the homeless hang out or he was coming from it. We found out he was a homeless man and arrived brain dead at the hospital.



I look at what happened. His life was there one minute and gone the next. Why did we, of all people, come around the corner when we did? Why wasn't anyone helping him? How could I have prayed for him more differently or more effectively? I don't know. I do know that God ordained us to be in that spot at that moment. I just don't know why.