Words fail me. If you’re not going to stop then at least drive the poor bastard to the hospital. Or at least pick up those legs so someone else doesn’t have to stumble upon them.
::Shudder::
I seem to remember something similar to this happening within the last year. Anyone remember a story about someone being hit and killed by a car, getting stuck in the windshield, and the police finding the corpse still stuck several days later?
Maybe someone should hit this person with a car. Of course, I wouldn’t want them to die…
You’re probably thinking about this woman from Fort Worth who just got sentenced to fifty years:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/national/main560329.shtml
There’s already been one pit thread about her (and maybe a GD one also I think), which is why this is so depressing. Threads often pop up about mans inhumanity to man so I guess it’s not that unique. It still makes my stomach hurt.
Judging from what the article says, I’m not so sure he did anything wrong. What would you do if you hit a pedestrian a mile from your house and didn’t have a phone with you? Get out and walk, so it takes 20 minutes to get to the phone instead of one minute? Wait for someone else to drive by? How would that have been better?
In fact, the Highway Patrol seems to agree:
This is sure to be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think the poor kid did anything wrong. First, I can’t imagine how I would react in this situation. Picking up the legs would not be high on my priority list. Lacking a cell phone and knowing someone is home just a mile away I may have made the same decision.
I can’t imagine that taking the victim to the hospital would be the best choice. How the heck would you know which hospital? Or how could you be sure you could drive more quickly than the ambulance.
In short, I don’t think the driver acted perfectly. We can’t expect everyone to react perfectly though. He acted with concern and did the best he could in a bizarre situation.
Don’t want to spoil the fun(?), but the article makes it clear that the police considered the pedestrian to be at fault, the driver didn’t have a cell phone on him, and was less than a mile from his house, where he could and did call for help. Hey, maybe he could have stopped somewhere sooner (imagine the pandemonium as he pulls into the local Sonic drive-in) but I’m not sure how sensible I’d be in such a horrific situation, so I don’t think I’ll stand in judgement on this one.
She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and though the wreck wasn’t her fault at all, she proved that she’s far from intelligent in her reaction, and due to gross negligence on her part, a man died.
Most of me wants to forgive her, and the rest of me would like to see her spend eternity in a cell.
Sam
Traffic tends to part quickly for a vehicle with a dismembered torso sticking out of the windshield.
All in all, I think I would have probably sat and waited for someone to come by. Last thing you want is to get pulled over with some dude stuck in your car.
Gawd
I want to make it clear to people that we are talking about two different people. I would be perfectly happy for the woman who was recently sentenced to rot in hell. The boy in the article above is a different story.
As for him, I think there were better courses of action. I’m just not sure we can judge anyone in that situation for doing what they thought was best at the time.
According to this:
Doesn’t sound like negligence to me.
I really think this poster is talking about the woman from Ft. Worth, as opposed to this guy from Florida.
However, in that case, I think they determined the accident may have been partially her fault, as she was on Ecstasy at the time…
*::writes in little notebook *“lodged… windshield… STOP!!!”
Hmm. Makes sense. <shrug>
The driver wasn’t at fault because the pedestrian was wearing dark clothing?
Am I reading that right?
Hell, the pedestrian could be wearing his freakin’ Zorro outfit. I would still have seen him, as I use my headlights. And the fucking kid could have called from the fucking bar that was right there, where the fucking legs were found!
Also, it seems to me (but I could be wrong) that the driver may have been going a bit on the fast side. If the impact was hard enough to sever the guys legs, the kid was moving at quite a clip.
“I didn’t stop 'cause I didn’t have a cell phone and my home was only about a mile away.” FUCK YOU.
That all depends on whether or not the kid was speeding. If he was on a road that had a 55 or so speed limit, I can easily see how a pedestrian in dark clothing might be very hard to see until it’s too late. Maybe the pedestrian suddenly darted into the road, or was in the road when the kid came over a hill or around a bend. I do have to say that I don’t know why the kid didn’t stop in the bar to call, unless it took a while for him to get his bearings after the accident, and all he could think of was “no phone, but home is close.”
True.
The article states the legs were found ‘near’ the parking lot of a bar, which I misread as ‘next’ to the parking lot. And I suppose the bar could be adjacent to a road with a higher speed limit if it’s a more rural area.
More info needed…
I didn’t start this thread to pass any kind of ultimate judgement on the driver or impart any motivation to him. This was a tragic accident. But the thing that most struck me about this is that if the driver determinied the pedestrian to be dead, why not stop? IF he thought the victim might still be alive, why not go back to the bar or any other place that might be closer. That he chose to drive home and call the police from the percieved comfort and safety of his home just strikes me as callous. Not wrong mind you, he doesn’t appear to be fleeing the scene of a crime, but callous.
I very nearly ran someone over the other day. It was twilight, well after sunset but before the streetlights had come on. The guy was dark-skinned and dressed in green-gray and ran across the street as I was turning through his intersection.
That being said, if I had run him over, I’d be calling 911 whether I thought he was dead or not.
Hmmmm, I’ll mark this in the ‘PRO’ column for getting a cellphone.
AFAIK, they never determined that the guy she hit was dead on impact. In fact, at one point I’d heard that he could have been alive as many as like 15 hours after being lodged in the windshield.
Also, never heard a lick about ecstacy being involved. Though that may be the fault of iternet and local media omissions.
I didn’t bother to read the article poasted…Why? Because who the fuck knew it could happen at all, let alone TWICE within 12 months!
Sam
GaWd:
You’re talking about the WRONG story. Get with the program for crying out loud.
This story could not be more different than the other one. That woman deliberately hid the victim in her garage, prevented him from getting medical attention, AND tried to hide the body the next day. She is in prison now.
Lonelocust:
Where are you getting that he “determined” the pedestrian to be dead? I don’t see that anywhere in the article. They don’t give enough information as to why he didn’t go to the bar to call 911. It sounds like the bar was close by, but SO WAS HIS HOUSE. And he DID call 911 when he got to the house. Maybe there was a lapse of judgment there in not turning around and driving back to the bar, but the difference would have been a matter of minutes at the most. The article just doesn’t give enough information, which is why you need to consider the fact that the Highway Patrol spokesman went on record saying she didn’t think the guy did anything wrong. I’m really amazed that you people consider your judgment on the matter, based on a sketchy internet article, to be better than the Highway Patrol’s.
Lapse of judgment? Probably.
Criminal misdeed? Very doubtful.
Ninja:
They DID call 911. And “officials” said the pedestrian was probably dead on impact, NOT Dradeen. Again, I don’t see anywhere in the article that says Dradeen thought the guy was dead, or that such an assumption influenced him in any way.
You guys really need to stop making stuff up.