It was an ordinary Tuesday morning until it wasn’t. I drove home from the chiropractor a little earlier than usual because my chiropractor was on vacation (still had my massage), and I had people coming for teacups at 10:15.
I pulled up to the stop sign. Only one more to go before I would get to my court. The whole thing was in slow motion. A man was in the shady crosswalk, almost halfway across the street in front of me. A woman was turning left from the side street. The man was looking down. The woman hit the man with her Lexus. He staggered backwards and fell onto his butt on the sidewalk.
I slowly went around the woman’s car in the middle of the intersection. She was out of it and heading over to the man. I pulled over and got out.
“You ran over my feet!” the man yelled.
The woman was pulling off his sock to get a look and offering to take him to the hospital. I took out my phone and sat down behind the man. He was frantically calling his wife. The woman kept insisting that she take him to the hospital.
“No!” I said. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
A younger woman appeared on the sidewalk. The man handed me his phone but I was talking to Dispatch, so I handed it to the younger woman to talk with his wife. I asked the woman driver if she was okay. She said she was.
I put my hand on the guy’s shoulder and pushed into him to warm up his back. He was on cold concrete and in denial about what condition he was in.
“I’m going to try to stand up now,” he said.
“No!” I said. “Wait for the paramedics.”
The dispatch woman asked for the address and for what kind of help did I need — fire, police, medical, mental. I said medical. After I explained the accident, she asked about the car, type, color, and how many doors.
I asked the driver again if she was okay.
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
I took a mental note of her license plate number. A neighbor came out of his house and asked what had happened.
“I’m going to move my car,” the woman driver said.
I repeated the license plate number to the neighbor as the woman turned the corner and left the scene.
In the confusion of everyone talking at once, I was happy to hear the sirens. An ambulance came, followed by a police car and two cops on motorcycles. Five or six paramedics stood on the sidewalk.
The paramedics did their thing and then suggested that the man go to the hospital.
“I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have any I.D. or anything.”
The paramedics kept trying to persuade him.
“I have to call my wife. She can’t come get me. She has the grandbaby.”
I offered to take him home from the hospital. The young woman took over the phone call with the wife. I kept saying, “You need to go to the hospital.”
Finally, the man agreed, and they helped him up. It took four paramedics to pull him up because of the pain in his feet. They loaded him in the ambulance. The police officer asked for witnesses, interviewed me, and pulled up a photo of the driver’s license plate. Danville has cameras everywhere.
“Is this the car?” he asked.
“That’s it,” I said. “I know the driver is freaked out right now. I hit a pedestrian once. It’s an awful feeling. Will she get into trouble?”
“She left the scene, so it’s a felony hit and run,” the officer said.
OMG.
People, if this ever happens to you, don’t leave. I’m sure the driver left because she was in shock and scared. Now it will be so much worse for her.
I always stop to help. If it were me, I’d want someone to stop and help me.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 