So there I am sitting at the light about to leave work for the night at 2AM. I’ve been at it since 4PM the previous day. I’m hoping for two hours of sleep before the morning since its my last night on shift and I need to flip back to days. As I’m sitting at the light I make a last second decision to turn right and go to a convenience store for a Monster Energy Drink for later in the day. I turn and accelerate on a three lane North bound highway and about 200 yards down the road I see a man laying in the street face down in a pool of blood. He had just been hit by a car. It may have even been the car that just passed by less than a minute before me.
I get on the phone right away as I block two lanes with my vehicle to avoid anyone else hitting him. He looks dead, but as I approach to check for a pulse I see that he is gasping for air. He looks like he is in death throws. His body is at weird angles as he lay on his stomach with his arms by his side. He has broken fingers. His head is looking in one direction, while his body twists and his feet are facing the opposite direction. I tell him, “If you can hear me help is on the way! Hang in there.” When the first officer arrives, the victim urinates and it puddles under his body. I think that wet sensation must have brought him back to consciousness, but it is a slow, agonizing process. He convulses a few times, then moves his head a little, then his arms. The cop is asking him to be still, but asking an incoherent, severely injured man to be still is futile. I’m thinking our best bet is to make sure he doesn’t try to get up. It seems like forever waiting for Fire and Rescue when in reality it has only been 5 minutes. Suddenly there are cops everywhere. By the time Fire and Rescue are on scene the victim is sitting up. He is apparently drunk and completely incoherent. He knows his name, but keeps saying nothing happened when asked. They load him up and take him to the Hospital. I give my statement to 3 or 4 different officers before being asked to write a statement. I have two or three different officers thank me for stopping and I’m told that I would be surprised how many people would just keep driving to avoid being involved. I finally get released and head home about an hour and half after the ordeal started. I’m glad the man lived. I keep wondering if he would have been hit again had I not made the highly unusual decision to turn right. Interesting morning.
