That is the only word I can use to describe the accident that I spent four hours at last night. Senseless loss of life. I dread it when the tones come across my pager for an accident. It is a part of what we do, our service to the community in times of need, but we would so much rather just be there in case of need than to have to respond to it. Late night on a road nearby that is known for its sharp declining curves, when you hear a call for an accident on it, you know that it will not be good, as if any accident ever serves a useful purpose.
When the response comes for our rescue truck for entrapment and for the fire police to close down a road, along with extra ambulances and medics, you only hope that we are not necessary, that everything is okay. But when you hear a medical helicopter placed on alert and then hear that their services as well as the EMT's are canceled, but rescue is told to continue in, your heart sinks. Last night was one of those nights.
For whatever the
cause of the accident, two young men, high school students, lost their lives. Over the past two years, it is the third fatal accident in that stretch of road. Their families and friends gathered at either end of the scene. Our job was to light the scene for the investigators as well as provide a perimeter to keep onlookers well back from the area. The clusters of people, obviously their classmates, clinging to each other, crying, consoling, asking why, why this had happened. Our job is to assist the police in their reconstruction, but also to provide for the safety of all who were at the scene, both working and grieving.
Seeing the kids, wrought with the pain of losing someone close to them, and the adults, either relieved it was not their son or daughter, came together to try and make sense of and begin the recovery from such a senseless accident. Senseless, that two young men will never get to see adulthood and live full lives. Senseless, that their parents and siblings have lose a part of their family. Senseless, that their friends and classmates have to grow up very quickly to see someone's life snuffed out in a moment.
I am not one to make a judgment on the cause of the accident. Those details will come out in the days and weeks ahead. It is, though, a reminder to all of us, to slow down a bit, pay attention more when we are behind the wheel. When I walked down to the scene, it was not until I was only a few feet away that I could even begin to tell what make of vehicle it was, and then only by the manufacturer's emblem. So many times, we feel that when we are surrounded by steel and airbags, that we are invincible. We aren't. We are frail in comparison to the forces of an accident, even a minor one. No matter what auto maker says about this safety feature or that improvement, the overriding laws of physics still remain.
My thoughts are with those who lost someone in that accident last night.
