I just saw a thing I wish I hadn't seen.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Thursday 10/17/2019
19:50

I just saw a guy on a skateboard get creamed by a vehicle. It was about 45 minutes ago, on Hayes Street just off Market. I was putting a batch of my mail art postcards in the mailbox nearest the Post Office; I’d counted 20 of them when I heard someone yell “Don’t get hit, man! DON’T GET HIT!”

Then there was a soft *whump! *noise, when the guy got hit. By one of those things that’s between a pickup truck and a small SUV, what I’d call a Bronco or a Blazer. He went flying and hit the asphalt.

I rushed over to check him out. He was young and white from what I could see of him; he just laid there crumpled in a pile. I saw his skateboard and maybe a little blood. I said “Hey, man–you OK?” even though he wasn’t, that was plain to see. He didn’t move or say anything.

So I did the only thing I could think of that’d be of any use at all. I hollered out, “HEY! This guy’s hurt, bad!” trying to attract some attention.

Pretty quick, there was a youngish, affluent looking hetero white couple there. The man said “Call 911!” I said I didn’t have a phone on me – but he did, so he made the call. Another guy–heavy set and bearded, probably gay by the sound of him–came out of the dark. Said he was a paramedic, told the two kids to direct traffic away from the (still quiet, still not moving) skater.

There was the couple with the phone, the self-called EMT, and the driver of the vehicle slowly approaching. There wasn’t jack shit I could do about anything, nothing but go back to the mailbox and deposit the rest of my postcards, then head back down to Market Street and start walking home fast-but real, real cautious (sorry, but I don’t ever talk to Officialdom if I can possibly avoid it).

At least there was an ambulance arrived at the scene pretty fast. Thank who or whatever.

I got back to the hovel and sat down outside to smoke a cigarette and calm down a bit. Came home and started writing this little bulletin while it’s fresh in my head. And it is. I just closed my eyes and saw that poor unlucky son of a bitch lying there on Hayes Street again.

2

I say the same thing every time I turn on the internet.

3

I’m sorry you had to witness that. I hope the guy who did the yelling was still around, he may have been the only visual witness other than the driver.

You know that thing about not being a jerk? You should try harder.

4

Thanks, man. I’m a bit more rattled by that than I thought I was at first.

5

Feeling a bit calmer yet?

Did you have that weird “everything slows down, but keeps happening super fast” thing going on? I was the ambulance caller a few years back when an older fella at the next table over had a heart attack right there in the restaraunt. Never found out if he survived or not, but my memory of it is still, unsettling a little, and …surreal I guess, not a normal memory

6

My kid’s a skateboarder in San Francisco (yes, he’s young and white… and he hasn’t texted back yet). They’ve lost a number of skaters to traffic accidents. Including Pablo Ramirez, who was a madman. I’ve seen him fly through intersections with cars just missing him… until a huge dump truck didn’t miss.
Whew! Just got a text: “Doin’ fine.”
Glad he wasn’t cute about it… He’s been known to text “Bleeding in a gutter.”

7

I once saw a pedestrian hit by a car on Toronto’s Yonge Street, back in the early 2000s. The pedestrian was hit into the air and landed with an awful-sounding “whump.” I don’t know what happened eventually, but it couldn’t have been good.

Seeing such a thing is a tragedy. I felt the way the OP did. I cannot erase the sight of that poor pedestrian flying through the air. Time heals, it is true, but some things you cannot unsee. Be well, OP.

8

I’m sorry that happened, it is especially jarring when you are just going about a normal day and all of a sudden, you are dealing with trauma. It’s hard for you to settle down when you’ve gone from 0 to 100 in one second; it takes a while to not have this nervous feeling that you could go from 0 to 100 again at any minute. It goes away.

If you can, just chill out for a while and just feel however you feel.

9

It’s several hours later, and yeah, thanks, I’ve settled down considerably. Still wondering about the poor mofo that got hit, though. And thinking how that could’ve been me, cutting across the street at the wrong moment and piece of sidewalk. My partner says it drives him nuts how careless I cross the street sometimes.

Something similar to that. When I first went near the vic and saw that he seemed unconscious, it felt like a half hour went by before the guy with the telephone came on the scene, even though I knew it was only like a fraction of a minute.

10

Thanks, you folks. I appreciate your thoughts.

I think that maybe what’s really jarring me is something similar but worse happen that I saw happen several years ago in broad daylight, just a few blocks away on Market and 6th Street: a homeless looking guy got hit by an SFPD car whose driver was trying to Hollywood through the red light on Market Street, while the man was in the crosswalk. He had the fucking light too (which wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, because pedestrians always have the legal right-of-way everywhere in California no matter what or when or where else. That time, I saw and heard the whole thing: the poor fucking hobo literally flew over the hood and windshield of the cop car, and landed with that same awful whump! sound it made when he was struck. I hurried off without stopping that time, too. And later when I told a friend of mine what had happened, he told me I really should’ve stayed and made a statement. It took me a* long *time to get over that, and I think some emotional backwash from that long gone by incident came up on me again tonight.

We really don’t know the day or the hour, do we?

11

Moderating=

At best this is a tone deaf response to an obviously upsetting event. Don’t be a jerk. No warning issued.

Don’t junior mod. Please use the report function. No warning issued.

12

Fitting OP soundtrack: Just want to see.

13

I understand that it was stressful. Maybe 7 years ago I was almost close enough to touch a motorcyclist as he drove into a parked truck at 70 MPH. Very disturbing, but in my case, it faded overtime.

Some people seem to hang onto the most stressful thing they experience such that it adversely affects them - seemingly for the rest of their lives. I’m not sure why that is, but best wishes that that does not prove to be the case with you. I’m not saying to intentionally forget it. But if you find it is still adversely affecting at some time in the future, consider what you might be able to do/who you might be able to talk to, to reduce that effect.

14

What the hell does the sexual orientation of passersby on the street have to do with the tale of a car accident?

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Not sure, but I’m not sure what the fact that he was heavy-set and bearded has to do with anything either. I assume the OP was just sharing the details that he noticed at the time.

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And their race and income level. (That was what stood out to me, too.)

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Perhaps the poster is a writer and is accustomed to setting the scene (descriptive does not automatically equal judgement), perhaps the trauma of the event brought everything into sharp focus. Considering what they went through, I give them a pass on this.

18

That was my initial observation and conclusion as well.

19

I have seen way too much of this stuff myself. IME, You notice many things that you would not usually notice if you were not dealing with trauma. El DeLuxo gets a major pass from me.

The aftermath of this event can be life changing.

If you hangout with EMTs, ER personnel, or wrecker drivers, you will notice that almost all of them have a macabre sense of humor. This humor is, I believe, one of their ways of dealing with the trauma that they see on a daily basis.

I was a wrecker driver for a few years, I found that I did not like what the daily infusion of trauma into my life was doing to me. This humor was an indicator to me that I had to find a different career path.

El DeLuxo, I will also advise to just chill out for a while. Let yourself deal with this. I bottled this stuff up for years, I do not recommend that you bottle this up. Deal with the emotions as soon as you are able to.

IHTH, 48.

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When you’re dealing with a big stressor, your brain hangs on to the weirdest details. It’s been almost seven years since a deputy and a state patrolman knocked on my front door to tell me that my husband had been in a bad wreck, and to take me to the trauma center, and the tiniest details still stand out. I put on a cloth jacket first, but decided to change because leather would spot clean easier. Wore my brother’s hand-me-down jeans from high school, in case I had to trash them later, since they were ~ 30 years old. Grabbed cash for the coffee machine. $13. I don’t know why my brain put that in my long term memory, but there it sits.

OP, be gentle with yourself for a bit. Your experience sounds awful. {{{Hugs}}}