Friday, September 12, 2008

A traumatic experience

Today, as I was on my way to pick Hannah up from school, I saw a little boy, around Elliott's age, get hit by a car. It was a scene that I will never be able to forget. It happened on one of the busiest thoroughfares in town. The road has 2 lanes of traffic going in each direction with a median dividing them. I was stopped at a stop light with about 4 or 5 cars ahead of me. Right next to me was a turn lane for cars to turn right, go through the other 2 lanes of traffic, into a shopping area. If that sounds confusing, remember we drive on the opposite side of the road. Anyway, To my left there is another lane of traffic, going the same direction as me, and to the right of them is the side of the road. There are always people dodging through the cars to try to get to the other side of the road. It happens every where here. When you drive down the road you constantly have to watch for people that might be standing in the middle of the 2 lane road, waiting for you to pass so they can cross. It is crazy.
As I was waiting at the light, I see a little boy, around 8/9 years old come from the left side of the road, through the cars if front of me. As I see him start out into the turn lane next to me, out of the corner of my eye I see a car come whizzing past. I say out loud, " oh no, your not going to make" as I see the car hit this boy, as he makes it to the middle of the lane. The car didn't have time to slow down and hits the boy full force. A direct hit to the body. I can still see his little face as he sees the car. He went flying through the air and lands under the car, 1 car ahead of me. I am in total and complete shock. The man who hit him gets out and slowly walks back. The man in the car that the boy is lying under slowly gets out and they begin to argue. Neither of them even checked on the boy. People start running up to see what happened and still no one ever gets down to check on the boy. I put my window down and yell at someone to call the police. Everyone keeps arguing, not caring about the boy. I am able to go around the car, and start to yell at other people to please stop arguing and staring and call the police to help the little boy.
At this point I don't know what to do. I want to get out hand help but, as lame as it sounds, really needed to be on time to pick up the kids because of certain circumstances. So, I drive on in tears. It was a horrific thing to see happen, but I think what hurt the most was the lack of concern for the boy. Not once did the man who hit him get down to check on him. We have seen this happen before. We have come on to the scene where a person was lying in the middle of the road, unconscious after being hit by a car and everyone is standing around him staring. None is kneeling next to him, checking on him. It horrifies us. Life is not treated as precious as it should be. We don't understand it. Maybe they see death so much it doesn't phase them anymore. I don't know, but my heart is broken for this little boy and his family. It would surly be a miracle if he lived. I'll never know. They don't report that kind of thing in the paper here, like at home. But he and his family, have been, and will be in my prayers and heart.

1 comment:

Me..... said...

oh my goodness... that must have been horrible.