Those Left Behind at the Crash Scene
In this blog I want to stay at the crash scene because I think it brings home an important point — I wasn’t the only person who left that crash scene traumatized.
Immediately after the crash occurred a woman pulled her car to the side of the road. She had seen my trajectory into the Fiat and had heard the deafening shatter that followed. She stepped out and began walking towards me. When she saw me on the ground she threw her hands up to the sides of her head, a look of horror transforming her face. Then she about-faced, turning the full 180 degrees so she could bolt back into the safety of her car.
She wasn’t leaving me there to bleed. I was already being helped by the passenger, Steven Clark, who was out of the car in a second. I had the opportunity to speak on the phone with Steven a year after the crash. He attributed his quick response to the fact that he had been a boy scout and spent plenty of time at skate parks where injuries were common. Even still, thinking back on the crash his comment was, “When I see you, I see your jaw. When I helped you out, you changed my life so much.” It was a memory that revisited him often. He told me that he had flown in from Pennsylvania one year after the crash and went the intersection for several hours.
Steven was relieved of medical duties when Officer Crist rushed from his squad car carrying a first-aid kit. Having a professional who knew what to do alleviated the fear of witnesses, but even for medically trained personnelthese types of incidents are hard. Responding to the call he received for my crash sticks in Officer Crist’s head like it was yesterday.
I have never met any of these people. Let me clarify - I say in conversations that I have never met them and I am repeatedly reminded that I did see them at the crash scene. I was awake and speaking to them. I just have no recollection of it. Yet, they all have a life-changing memory of me. They all know what a person looks like when their face is de-gloved. To give a sense of how terrifying I imagine seeing me was, without traumatizing you as well, when I looked at the surgeon’s photos from before I was operated on I couldn’t discern where my jaw was. I didn’t see skin. I saw blood, and tissue, and bone. Trauma rarely happens to one person and I was not the only one to leave the crash scene in shock.
I recently discussed some of the details about the crash with Scott, the cyclist who was behind me. It wasn’t our first meeting. Within a few weeks after I returned home from intensive care we had talked at Amante Coffee Shop. The initial meeting provided him a chance to see that I was recovering and it was an opportunity for me thank him for giving a detailed, accurate witness statement to the investigating police officer. We never discussed the crash scene that day. We’ve seen each other around town since then, but again, our conversations never focused on events of that day.
Scott is off the the right talking with a police officer.
Up until our latest conversation that lasted several hours, again at Amante, I figured Scott seeing me alive and out of the hospital was what mattered for his healing. Unlike the others who saw my face torn off and life spilling out at the intersection of Hygiene and highway 36 that day, Scott has seen me recover. He knows I can scrunch my mouth to the side when I’m pondering an idea and smile while riding my bike. My assumption was that Scott had seen my scrambled face at the crash scene and it was good that he has seen it heal.
Actually, Scott never saw my face after going through the window. But he did see the blood and hear the frustration, fear, and anger in my voice. He was aware of how bad the situation was because he saw that woman as her face registered with horror before she turned to flee. What I failed to realize is that Scott and I had very similar experiences that day. I can’t remember the impact, and he can’t recall how he avoided impact and got around to the other side of the car safely. He fantasizes about having the ability to reach out and slow those moments down so that I could walk away unharmed. I daydream about whether I could have somehow navigated my bike around the back of the Fiat. We both agree that there was something about the Fiat, perhaps its bold red color or maybe simply its movement, that had immediately registered to us as dangerous and unavoidable. At one point in our conversation Scott expressed that it was good to finally be able to talk about that day. Over three years later, there was still healing to be done, and not just for me.
During any traumatic event the emotional reaches go far beyond what is normally considered. I am not the only one who has to live with the day of my crash. Others also have had to process what they experienced and find their own way to heal.
Chapter II of my book will delve into what my family went through when they found out I was in the emergency room. While they weren’t at the scene, they also experienced secondary trauma. Stay tuned for more...