my life

An unfunny thing happened on the way home.

It didn't happen to me, so rest easy. It happened to someone else, so don't rest so easy.

To destroy the suspense already, the kid was lucid and didn't appear brain injured, just apparently in shock.

We were coming home from what has become a rare outing--eating out. (You'd be amazed at the improvement in your diet, as well as your wallet, when you just start cooking at home.) The way home from Prattville, Highway 14, is a narrow two-lane road, what Texas would call a "farm to market." It goes for miles at highway speeds, but those maniacal Alabamians rarely drive that slowly on them. These roads have no shoulders and no highway lights. You pretty much have to pay attention when you drive on them in the daytime, doubly so at night.

We were within a mile of home when we came upon a...scene (hence, "first on scene"). There was an empty logging truck parked on the grass on our side of the road and a mangled, smoking black piece of metal in front of the truck. We could see the mangle well because it was facing us, and the truck's headlights were full on it. Smoke was boiling out from under the hood. A truck had stopped at the other side of the road. There was a quarter of an axle and a wheel lying just to the left of the truck in the street. Shattered glass was everywhere.

We pulled over to see if we could help. I ran on the grass past the truck and saw that a young man was sitting on the grass gazing around himself. He had rivulets of blood running down his face and between his eyes. He had a nasty gash in his hairline, a couple of inches above his left temple. Someone was talking to him. I found out that this man was the truck driver. The man from the other truck across the road was calling 911 on his cell phone.

I asked the young man if there was anyone else in the car. He said no. Oh thank heavens for that. Someone walked over to his car and cut off the engine. (Yes...it was still running.)

While we waited for the authorities to arrive, I figured the least I could do was to talk to the young man, try to keep him calm and try to keep him still. Like most people, I don't have much training in such things, but I figure that a head injury warrants at least keeping the guy's attention and getting him talking.

He asked, "What happened? Where am I? Did I hit a truck on the side of the road or something? I must have fallen asleep."

Then he touched the gash in his head with his left hand and said, "I hope I'm not hurt." He pulled his hand away and gazed at the blood on it for a minute, then said again, "I hope I'm not hurt."

I asked him his name a couple of times before he answered. Thad. His age? 28. Did he just get off work? Yes. Where does he work? Some health food store in Millbrook.

"Did I hit a truck? What happened?"

I didn't know. He tried to stand up again and I said, "Don't get up. Just stay where you are." He obeyed, sitting there blinking through the blood. He touched his cut again. "I hope I'm not hurt. Is my car okay?"

I kept talking with him until law enforcement and first aid personnel arrived (firemen, in this case). I didn't answer his questions because I either didn't know the answer or didn't want him in greater shock. News that he could start car shopping might be too much at the moment.

After talking with a couple of people at the scene, we figured out what happened. The truck driver said something flew up in front of his truck and he'd pulled over to investigate. He hadn't been there 10 or 15 seconds when something hit him from behind. Remember...the car is sitting in a mangled heap in front of the truck. The truck was sitting still when it was struck.

Apparently, Thad had fallen asleep at the wheel on his way home from work and run into the back of the parked logging truck. From the extensive damage to the car and its position relative to the truck, I daresay he was exceeding the speed limit, probably by about 20 mph at the time of the impact. He hit the left side of the truck's rear bumper with the right front of his car. The car somehow made it around the left side of the truck, dropping a wheel with some axle along the way, coming to a halt in front of the truck so that it appeared as though the truck had t-boned the car. Indeed...the right front half of the car was smashed flat.

The kid was not wearing a seat belt. He's lucky to be alive, let alone as lucid as he was.

We waited until the fire truck got there and he got first aid, and we left.

Seatbelts--really a good idea.

Driving fatigued--more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol. I wouldn't advocate driving drunk, of course, but because there really isn't a legal threat for driving fatigued, too many people aren't even aware of its dangers. Besides...they can't really give you a breathalyzer or blood test to determine fatigue, can they? All they can do is warn you. And lets face it: drivers are warned about the dangers of tailgating and proper following distance, too, and (from the looks of it) most of them don't listen to that, either.

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