I’m okay, the other driver is ok, and my 3 year old in the car with me is fine. An elderly jaywalking pedestrian (the other car swerved into me, in an attempt to avoid her) is in the hospital, but the cop writing the report says he was told she is “not critical”. The cop did not cite either of the vehicles involved with the accident.
I’m a bit shaken. She bounced off the other guy’s car and tumbled through traffic, and my wheels stopped literally less than 12 inches from her head. She was unconscious when I got out to help her, but woke up and complained about how hot the pavement was (it’s around 105 here in Vegas today) just before the paramedics got there.
I work as an EMT, but I was kinda frazzled by the whole incident. I see stuff worse than this pretty often, but actually being part of the incident gives you a whole different perspective, and a strange unpleasant adrenaline dump when it’s all over. At first, I thought the woman tumbling down the road might have fallen out of the car in front of me. I was SO SURE I ran her over, but it turns out I missed her. My son was screaming in fear, I was holding her head steady in case she had any spinal injuries, and I was terrified another car might not realize we were all stopped and slam into my car, with my son still inside. I told some random spectator to direct traffic away from us, which was probably a pretty silly thing to do considering how obvious the accident scene would have been to oncoming drivers.
Anyway, that’s that. My first traffic accident, ever. Ugh.