Once, on the way home from the holidays, I witnessed a Geo Metro T-bone a gravel truck. My passenger and I got out to help. The driver was beyond hope, having been decapitated. His passenger was alive when the ambulance arrived and I never heard if she made it or not.
I watched a car pull out to pass on a two lane road, hitting a motorcycle head on. The guy on the bike was toast.
The last one was when I still lived in Nashville, in a dodgy neighborhood. I came home from working second shift one night to the crime scene van and several police cars parked in front of my building. It seems that my neighbors (a couple) had gotten into a fight and one stabbed the other to death. They brought out the body when I was unlocking my front door.
I saw a few others when I worked in a nursing home, but those were expected.
I have seen a few, including my step-father just a short time after he passed. It was a disturbing way to see him, but since I did not actually witness his death i am not sure if it counts.
The worst was a friend of mine. She and I were crossing the street after the bar. Two guys street racing came whipping around and we were caught in their headlights and ran. I felt the heat of the engine as it passed behind me, it was so close. I was quick and had longer legs.
I turned to her as I reached the curb to say, “Wow that was close…” and saw her get hit. I heard a scream a second before, but I am not sure if it was her, me or someone on the sidewalk.
She did two or three perfect cartwheels through the air and her head bounced off the curb as she came to rest about thirty to fifty feet away on the boulevard. I ran to her and did a quick check for everything. Her pulse stopped a few seconds later under my fingers and I started CPR. A guy came by and helped.
Although we did get her heartbeat back, she was declared braindead and taken off support the next morning. Her injuries were very extensive and although her parents’ wanted her organs donated, the only usable parts were her heart valves.
The guy that hit her got house arrest for a few years for reckless endangerment and leaving the scene. Yes, he peeled away immediately.
It took about two years to get past that accident, the PTSD and the survivor’s guilt. Janelle was a very special person, I rarely go a month without a thought of it, it had a profound effect on me and my life.
I witnessed this crash at the MCAS El Toro airshow many years ago. I was over by the static displays though, so I couldn’t see it hitting the ground. Just the plane coming down, and the fireball. Doesn’t count for the purposes of this thread, but it’s something I thought of.
I also saw this crash, only this time I was at the crowd barrier so I had a good view. You can see him lose his energy right at the beginning (I thought he was trying to do some sort of bizarre ‘square loop’), and you can see the stall at the top. The pilot survived with severe injuries.
My father on his deathbed and a boyfriend of mine committed suicide in my garage from carbon monoxide poisoning and I found his body. I had nightmares for years after that one.
Here’s a weird one. My ex was in a cab in Dublin, and looked out of the window to see a guy leaping up horizontally a few inches above the sidewalk. She thought it was some breakdancing, or a stunt with a dummy or something, and thought no more of it.
Later she heard the news and what she had seen was a window cleaner who had slipped and fallen a long way down to his death. Bizarre that she glimpsed the 1/4 second where his body was bouncing upwards from the impact.
Just a couple of months ago someone committed suicide by commuter train. It was a train just before the one that I was on. We were delayed due to the ‘incident’. When we finally got clearance to proceed on a different track I could see what had happened.
If you find yourself curious about an accident that you are going to pass, resist temptation and don’t look. You can never unlook.
The train was express through the station where this occurred and was probably going about 60-70mph. While the body had been removed I could figure out what had happened. The person jumped out from behind the stair tunnel at the near end of the platform and the body went flying about 75 feet and into a glass shelter on the platform. The train was still stopped well down the tracks, and the front was still covered with the ‘evidence’. I can’t imagine the effect on witnesses that might have been on the platform, or the driver.