clevermanka | Why I don't look

solan_t's post here brought up the memory of why I don't glance towards accidents, much less rubberneck.

When I was a freshman in college, I was riding home with my roommate to visit her folks in Wichita for the weekend. It was very late at night/early in the morning (1:00 or 2:00 a.m.) and we were heading south on I-35, several miles north of Emporia. We saw the shape of a car on the side of the road, and something beside it. "Gross. Looks like somebody hit a deer," said the roommate.

We slowed down as we passed, and moved into the passing lane, in case the person was getting ready to exit their car. That's when we saw that the person had already exited the car. The body was lying in two pieces, separated at mid-torso, and was taking up most of the right side driving lane. I have no memory of what was wrong with the car, or theories as to how it might have happened. I vividly remember what a person looks like who has been torn in half, their pieces left to drain on the highway.

This was before cell phones. There were no gas stations open nearby. We were two teenage girls in the wee hours of the morning, on a quiet stretch of southern Kansas highway. There was nothing we could do. We just kept driving, and didn't speak the rest of the way to Wichita. I don't think we mentioned it to each other, ever, in the next two years we were roommates.

I don't gawk at accidents. I make every effort not to look at all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am sorry I dredged that up for you. *hugs*

I know I will be doing my damnedest not to look closer than I have to in the future. Once the emergency vehicles start to arrive, there's not a blessed thing I can do, after all.

No, that's ok. Don't feel bad about dredging anything up. I think about it every time I see an accident, even if it's just a fender-bender, and all parties are standing around in the street waiting for the cops to show up.

I really do try not too look too much, but I am facinated with figuring out what might have happened. But, at the same time, I really prefer not having incontrovertable proof that an assumption of 'walked away with no more than minor injuries' just isn't true. :(

My brain just gicked

Um. OK.

In that I mean I think I'm about as disturbed by proxy and on your history's behalf as I can be.

I am sorry that you had to see that. But on the other hand, as an EMT I am grateful for some of the comments made herein that not everyone gawks and some even try their darnedest NOT to look. Rubberneckers cause more accidents and occasionally it is the EMS personnel that are hurt by a
gawkers inattention to their driving. Human nature aside, I look to see if I need to stop and offer assistance until EMS arrives. I never know if my training will make the difference. I try to look at it as if they were all my mom or dad. I would want qualified people to stop and help and anyone else to carefully drive by.
As an aside, about thirty minutes ago, I was talking to my husband who was backing another officer on an accident on I-40 when he said "Oh sh*t, I'll call you back." Then when he did it was to tell me he had to leave his post of backing the other officer to work a 3 car accident that happened right in front of him. Guess what? Yep they were rubbernecking. One of the guys told him he was looking to see if he could help. Jason asked if he was a dr or emt and the guy said no but he was a para-legal. .......um okay? They all got tickets.

Hope that helpful paralegal works in an office that deals with traffic violations.

I think I actually knew the victim. ;-/ If it's who I think it was, he likely committed suicide by jumping in front of a semi.

Ugh. That makes for a small world...but wouldn't the semi driver have stopped?

There was no semi, no cops, no nothing.

And what a horrible, horrible thing to do to some poor truck driver.

The semi driver probably didn't even see or feel what had happened, especially if he dove under the wheels with the intent to get killed.

There was another case in Emporia where a driver killed a little girl on a bike and didn't even know it until they stopped the truck at the toll booth. It wasn't his fault. She was in his blind spot and he was turning. But the point is he didn't even know it had happened.

And agreed on what a horrible thing it was to do to a truck driver. And to his own wife and kids. Suicide is an ugly thing.

Rest assured, my dear, this guy had no wife and kids, and he was from Indiana. I'm glad it wasn't your friend then.
But a very very tragic accident instead. He was a very experienced motorcyclist.

Two different incidents. I'm talking about the accident outside of Emporia many years ago, not the one that happened yesterday.

OH! I'm so sorry. Both for my gaffe and for your friend.

"Jumped" into the side of a moving semi on a large motorcycle?

Hmmm.
I can think of better ways to go about it.

REgardless... I'm glad to not have seen this one. It's more .. well,..horrible than alluded to in the ljworld.

And I'm so sorry you had such a horrible experience with seeing an accident like that when you were young and there was nothing you could do.

It certainly was a formative moment for me. Sometimes it's good to be reminded of how fragile we are. Especially at that age.

No. He parked his car and jumped under a semi on foot. At night, on the highway, just outside of Emporia. No note, but his car wasn't broken, and there didn't seem to be any other reason for him to have been out there. There were also other indications that he was depressed.

Edited 2008-07-16 21:41 (UTC)

Ugh. That's just awful .. especially for the family to not really know.

One of the many reasons I don't drive semis for a living anymore.

I can't imagine what that driver must have felt when he or she found out. It's just too awful.

Good god.

Why I don't look

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