My parents and sister were coming home from the airport after vacationing in the Bahamas on Sunday night. Everything seemed to try to keep them from getting home that day. Their flight was delayed, when they stopped and ate the Steak n Shake was packed with only two employees working, and frequent bathroom stops had to be made. The drive home obviously took longer than it normally would have taken.
About 30 miles outside of our home town, driving on a dark stretch of road, a man in a dark jogging suit was just standing in the middle of the road. As you can guess, he wasn’t seen, and was run over by my Dad. It was unavoidable, he couldn’t be seen. He made no attempt to get out of the way.
It turns out he had escaped from a group home for mentally ill patients, twice that day. The second time he was hit by my parents. He didn’t even have shoes on. My mom said he had no reaction, and they he just stood there as if nothing was happening. He died on impact.
My brother and I didn’t witness this event because we are in college. But my parents are very upset about what happened, as one could understand. They don’t feel it is their fault, but they feel awful. I honestly think this might have some severe emotional/psychological effects on my family, especially my Dad. How can I help him cope with this? I told my mom they just have to move on, and to look at it as if it could have been anyone else who hit him. I mean, if it was someone else who hit him, they wouldn’t even think twice about the man.
It seems as though they were destined to hit this man, see as how they were delayed so many times that day. I just want to know how they can deal with this and try to get over it.
First of all, get rid of that last line about being destined to hit this guy. We never know what is going to happen in our lives. The best we can do is simply to do the best we can do. Make the best decisions you can whenever you make them. Sometimes, things go poorly. In your case, there are probably plenty of guilty feelings to go around – your dad, the person at the MH facility who should have secured the patient, the patient’s family for putting him in such a shoddy facility, etc. At the end of the day, all these people simply took the information they had at the time and made the appropriate decisions. Unfortunately, things turned out poorly. However, most of the time, things turn out just fine.
Look up counselors in your yellow pages. Find a Licensed Professional Counselor to help your parents through this. If they won’t go, you go yourself for advice on how to help them. This counseling is probably covered by their medical insurance.
Another option would be to visit your school’s counseling services office. They probably can put you in touch with an LPC in your parent’s area.
You could contact the police department that made the report of the accident. They have victim’s services and other counseling resources.
Contact your communitee’s MHMR center. They have people who can help your family based on income.
There are resources and they’re not that hard to find.
IMHO, something of this magnatude could put your dad in line for something like Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I think he should get counseling, ASAP.
What an awful thing to have happen; my deep sympathy for your parents. Counseling is of course wise, but if your Dad is like mine, the best therapy is some action he can take. Perhaps they can get involved with a mental health advocacy group in their community or, if they have a church affiliation, see if there’s an outreach committee they could volunteer for (or start if there isn’t).
I know you meant well, but your comment that they wouldn’t think twice if they hadn’t been involved may have made them feel worse. You are right, though, that it could have happened to anyone. It may help to remind them that many people in their position would have felt no sense of responsibility (which is not the same as guilt or fault) or tried to make themselves out to be the victim. It speaks to your folks’ humanity that they aren’t just putting this behind them as if it didn’t happen.
Trust me. They are both suffering PTSD, to a degree. It won’t fully appear for days and weeks. Find good counselling, someone they can go back to in the future.
I’m so sorry they had this happen. I’m also sorry for the lost life, of an innocent who wasnt’ watched carefully enough.
With the comment about if it wasnt them hitting him they wouldnt care, I was meaning they dont know they guy, so it is just as if someone they dont even know died. I know it makes all the difference in that world that his life was ended because of their actions, even if i t was a complete accident.
Just for your all’s information, the state trooper who came to the scene agreed that the accident was unavoidable, and I seirously doubt any legal action will be taken. Dad went to the hospital immediately when he got home to get blood test to confirm he was alcohol and drug free.
Sounds to me the victim’s family will be in touch with thier own lawyer and the suit will most likely be with the group home…more than certainly it will be against them.
This will sound hard hearted, but doesn’t the OP’s family have a suit against the carers for their failure to keep this person safe. At least to the cost of their psychological couselling and their car’s damage.
It sounds like the killed person was a liability for running away and the group home didn’t protect that person from their actions. The OP’s family has no blame, but they will need help coming to terms with what happened.
As a side note, the OP addresses what is perhapse the greatest fear I have, the fear of accidentally killing an innocent person. I hope the OP can keep us informed of what happens and how he/she and his/her family come through this terrible situation.
I recently read a big article in the Sunday NY Times Magazine showing data that the more you dwell on a traumatic incident (via therapy, esp.), the more it lodges in your brain and the more you’ll obsess over it. For some people mentally brushing it under the rug is the best way to get past something. If this works for your family, don’t push them into counseling.
I was thinking this very same thing. Reactions to this kind of event can vary widely among individuals, and I hesitate to mark any given reaction as “typical”. It’s something to be played by ear in the early going.
Tough question. But you know what? People die. Some die in accidents.
I feel as if I can pretty certainly say, “if I kill someone accidentally, I won’t feel bad.” People die in accidents, and that’s the point of the word. It wasn’t their fault.
If this is any comfort. . .if you can truly say that one death is less tragic than another, I’m guessing that a guy desperate to escape from a looney bin isn’t even one of your most tragic. He might have been trying to off himself because he knew he was depressed and also causing his family grief.
Also, they might not get any real sort of PTSD beyond what they have now. I was in an accident once (thrown from a car doing 65 that put a friend of mine into a coma) and I was fine but everyone said “it might be a week or a month, or maybe 6 months from now, but that PTSD will hit you.”
Well, here it is about 16 years later (wow! time flies) and I still haven’t felt any post-trauma stress or anxiety.
So, this probably wasn’t helpful but you can tell your dad, “some dude on a message board said he wouldn’t feel bad, so you shouldn’t feel bad.”
I would feel bad for hitting someone regardless of the circumstances. First thing is that it is OK for your parents to feel however they feel. There isn’t a problem usless they are obsessing or can’t get over it with time.
I have the same feelings as you. If I killed someone accidentally, especially not knowing who they were, I would move on, and just look at it as if it was just some dying of an accident.
More info on the “victim”: He wasn’t a criminal, or even insane. He was just a psychiatric patient who happen to escape for some reason. I think he might have been under the influence or drugs, possibly from his medication. My mom said he didnt react at all to the oncoming vehicle. He probably wasnt aware of what was coming.
*I have the same feelings as you. If I killed someone accidentally, especially not knowing who they were, I would move on, and just look at it as if it was just some dying of an accident. *
While this may be a rational response, I suspect many people would question themselves and have have some measure of regret and possibly guilt. While it is possible to say that it could not be avoided, I think I would always worry that I failed to do something that would have resulted in a different outcome. I think I would think about it everyday, at least for a while. But then, I tend to blame myself for lots of stuff.
At-any-rate, I am so sorry that this has happened.
Oddly enough, the same thing happened to my sister about 20 years ago, but the woman didn’t die. She had just been released from a mental hospital and promptly ran into the street and right in front of my sister’s car. Bounced off the windshield, scared the living hell out of my sister, but was not badly injured (was promptly recommitted, of course).
it might be relevant that the person who died apparently made no effort to get out of the way of the approaching car. was it suicide? if i killed someone in a car accident i would feel terrible, but if i thought somone deliberately used me to end his own life, that would make me angry and i think i’d get over it more easily. for your parents, i think a key is that the police have determined that they are not at fault. there was nothing they could have done. they should believe the authorities. it might also be worth contemplating what might have happened to your family if your dad had swerved at the last instant and wrapped the car around a tree, or darted into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with another car that had another family inside. the fault here is with the institution that couldn’t keep track of its patients.
There has to be some kind of support group out there for this. If there isn’t, maybe you could help start one. Last year my cousin (who was 17 years old) hit and killed a bicyclist who was riding on the road with no lights during a bad rainstorm. He didn’t go insane or anything and it didn’t seem to affect him in a huge way.