How many tragic accidents have you seen?

Yesterday I was the first one to arrive upon a horrible accident. A young girl with a car full of young children hit a motorcyle with a side cart. Everyone in the car was ok but as I ran screaming "OH GOD" repeatedly knowing that what I was about to see was going to be bad was correct. The motorcycle riders were lying lifeless on the ground, severly injured, and were flown by lifestar. Very traumatic for me to see. But as I was telling my husband about the accident we were talking about the time we saw a paraglider crash onto the highway in front of us. He only suffered a broken leg. We also witnessed our young cousing get hit by a car but survived and came through ok after alot of therapy. Wow, just seems like a lot of accidents to witness.

 

BBB - how sad for all involved and hopefully everyone comes out of this okay. Very traumatic for those kids in the car, I hope this is recognized and dealt with but I must say that as kids we say many accidents and in those days people were less likely to survive and it did not scar us in any way (that I'm aware of at least).

I spent much of my life in travel mode so have seen some pretty brutal things. I've also been on the other side of the stick, and much to my delight, I'm still here to enjoy my life.

These events are difficult to wipe from ones mind but eventually they melt into the void.

 

I've seen a few fender-benders (and been in a few, including my famous 'soft' roll-over in the Focus), but I've only witnessed one I would call 'horrible'. And I saw it through my left outside mirror.

Was working one day at the Auto Club in Gardena, CA (this was around 1984). Had just left the office to go look at a crashed car or something...
Was travelling on El Segundo Bl going E/B, when I saw this other vehicle going W/B, and he was flying - must have been going at least 80 (in a 45 zone) Knew right away something was very wrong. Looked in my rear view and saw that cross traffic for the signal I just went through had the green light. This guy was not going to be stopping for the red light. He went right into the intersection at full speed and it seemed like there was a huge explosion of car parts..... didn't get a good look of how the cars actually collided. It was a pretty busy intersection with lots of traffic.

Read a news report later that indicated the driver was high on PCP.....

It was kind of an odd feeling knowing there was going to be a real bad accident, and not being able to do anything about it......

 

BBB, If you've seen one it's two too many. I stopped counting ah long time ago

 

It's very sad. But the way people drive it is to be expected. I am on a few motorcycle sites and read about this nealy once a week. Those are only the accidents reported on sites. And the highway where we live has way too many fatal motorcycle accidets, as does most of Florida. Mixing motorcycles and idiots in vehicles does not mix.

We have camped a lot in the midwest and southeast. I was also a trucker. Being on the road a lot I've seen a lot. Some good. Some bad.
The two worse accidents I saw were as follows.

First is both a station wagon and motorcycle story. I had this habit of stopping just off the two lane highway in a drive-inn entrance where I could turn the rig around easy. This was my morning coffee stop. It was a short distance from a small factory on the left with an entrance in full view. Whatever it was, seemed to be mostly young women employees. It was time for the first shift to arrive so there were constantly vehicles stopping and then making the left into the parking lot.
A full sized station wagon, green with woodgrain sides, was stopped. It was full of young women. A speeding motorcycle went completely inside the rear of that wagon! Screaming women jumped out. We didn't have cell phones so I called in on channel nine on my CB radio. Not sure if others called. Shortly police and ambulances were there. I have no idea what happened to the women in the back of the station wagon or the biker. It couldn't have been a pretty sight.

The next one, among hundreds others, was two semis hitting head on in a snow storm in the oncoming four lanes of a divided highway. Both tractor rigs litteraly exploded and burst into a mangled mess.

I've seen RV's and motorhomes break apart much in the same way, hardly recognizable. Someone was always watching over me. Never had a big rig accident and only one head on in my brand new pick up truck. It was dead of winter, glare ice, and a car loaded with drunk kids.

People drinking or distracted seems to cause most accidents. Vehicle malfunctions very few, other than an occasional blown tire. No matter how careful we are, an accident can happen instantly. Live each day as if it is your last. It could be !

 

This is so true!

 

Wow CatModelT...that's some story about the wagon and motorcycle. I can't believe Florida doesn't have helmet laws! The wreck I saw yesterday ripped the ladies helmet off her head. I did locate the people today and they will survive but with long term injuries especially the lady which was in the side cart where the car t-boned her.

And to add to it they had traveled to TN from MS to the motorcycle shop and had just purchased the new side cart. They were maybe two miles from where they had just purchased it.

 

That is sad Bettie, wish you didn't have to see that.

I've seen some bad ones first hand also in my time. The worst for me was, how it effected my daughter and a friend of hers. My daughter got her learners licence in grade 12 and for grad we got her a nice little mustang convertable (for grad),

but anyways.... I was driving her and a friend some whrere and we stopped at a red lite behind a mini van. It was a odd intersection as a old building to the rite was rite on the corner and it made your view to the rite blind untill you entered the intersection.

The lite turned green and the mini van slowly crawled out with me almost on it's bumper. Blind by the corner even I didn't see another mini van at SPEED run the red lite untill it was too late. It t-boned the van infront of us so hard, it left the ground, spun 180 and landed on it's drivers side with parts landing on the hood and roof of a old wagon of mine.

2 elderly people still strapped to there seats. The driver smashed his head bad on the concrete, still contious but out of it and bleeding. His wife strapped hanging to the passenger seat was able to drop me and another fellow the keys and I barly got my fingers in the rolled van to get them. We ripped open the back doors, pulled the rear seats out. With a coat in the van I held the drivers head and the other guy held the ladys head untill recue got there.

The girls were tramatized, my daughter so bad...she only had her learners for a month and she has never driven since. We kept her car for a few years hoping, but she has never and said she will never drive.

 

Glad to hear they are going to survive. Sorry you had to see this. Hope your Ok it can take awhile for this sort of event to work through your system. Don't be afraid to talk to someone if you have any issues down the road.
We witnnessed a young boy get hit by a train...don't think I want to share any more then that.

 

A few years back I was a couple cars behind a pick-up that hit a pedestrian trying to run across the interstate. He was killed instantly. I drove a few more miles before pulling over due to being sick to my stomach. Hope I never see another one and sorry you had to see that.

 

A few years back I was two lanes across from a motorcycle who didn't notice the bobtail truck ahead of him slow down and come to a fast stop. The motorcycle guy got it big time ,it happened so fast he never saw it coming . He was decapated by the ramp on the truck, his body and bike getting squished by the trucks rear axl. That was crazy to watch as it happen. Probably won't ever see something like it again. That was wild

 

There was this little car going west as I was going east on the Trans Canada highway between the Saskatchewan/Alberta border and Swift Current (Speedy Creek we call it). The young ladies in the car had been traveling for a long time and the driver unexpectedly had a snooze at the wheel.

I saw this car go down through the ditch, go for a little airplane ride, and land upside down. Pulled off, ran across, and two very scared young ladies trying to get out of this little 70's Toyota with the roof pushed down and neither could get their seat belts undone. And a tight fit to get them out.

The gas tank was leaking fuel all over the place. I was a lot thinner than I am now and the only other person there at that second was a very large trucker who'd been behind the ladies car. He kicked what was left of the back window out (he had boots on, I had sneakers) and I crawled in and with his knife cut the seat belts and some other thin folks were able to help us get them out.

I heard this kurfuffle going on in the back ground and wondered if the car was going to go up in flames. Once we were out I noticed that the trucker had apparently had a very "firm" discussion with a fellow who'd stopped to look and of course while he was standing a couple of feet away, with gas pouring out of the gas tank, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lit one. I understand that the trucker picked him up, grabbed the lit cigarette in his hand and jammed it into the smokers face as he hauled him up to the road. The grass was very dry so it was a good thing he did that.

As it was, others folks were using their hands to scoop dirt up and piling it on the gas as it came out. A trucker had grabbed my feet and was able to pull me out with me holding on to one of the ladies and the other was then able to work her way out on her own. We were all terrified that the car was going to catch fire with us still in and around it.

The adrenaline rush you get doing something and then later the exhaustion is unbelievable. I felt like I'd run several miles (not that I've ever run more than a block at a time) and ended up having a nap in my car before carrying on. To this day I think about that idiot with his cigarette and thank my stars that trucker was there and acted quickly and assertively.

Two summers ago down near the Hood Canal west of Seattle we saw a Navigator IIRC coming at us and suddenly go all squirely on the road and flip sideways and slide down the highway toward us. Far enough away that we were not in any danger but had it happened a minute or two later we'd of been more involved. The lady driver crawled out and was screaming "my baby, my baby" and it turned out she had a crumb cruncher in a childs safety seat in the back and had been glancing back and lost control. She was scraped up, the baby was totally unhurt, just scared. This happened right across from a Native Casino and gas station and I swear 20 or more people poured out of those buildings and helped her in just a few moments. They literally swarmed that vehicle, fire extinguishers coming out of the gas station, the casino, a semi, it was fabulous the response.

Too often people don't realize what it is they can do to help in an accident, even if it is just to console someone trapped in a car while help comes, or take care of a child or pet if the owner is in difficulty. Something as simple as taking their pet and putting it in your vehicle or some safe area and assuring the owner that it is okay can mean so much. Or holding a hand and telling them they will be okay, it doesn't take much, just you doing what you can to take some of the fear away might just be the last time that person has a chance to hear a friendly voice, ever.

 

november 2004
weather: clear around 79deg f

I Left my apartment in Boca Raton about 7 am to pick up Jenn (then my girlfriend) at the Orlando airport. From my apartment it was a 2 1/2 hours to the Orlando Airport then another 3 to Tallahassee for thanksgiving at my dads.

i stopped to grab a quick breakfast at the Ft Pierce service plaza and jumped back on the Fla Turnpike north. A couple of miles past the Ft Pierce Exit i knew something was up...i didn't see 1 single vehicle comming the other direction. then in the distance i saw smoke...not like house or brush fire smoke...lighter. then about a mile later i rounded a curve and saw it.

in the southbound lanes...on a canal overpass sat a mazda 6 with the rear end smashed up to the b pillar in flames..fully engulfed. up against the opposite guardrail facing north, a cadillac cts with no visible damage.
but behind the mazda, a late model Lincoln continental with severe front end damage. somone had draped a bed sheet across the windshield and front doors. there were people scurrying around but no emergency vehicles yet between Ft pierce and Yeehaw junction is 50 miles...with absolutely nothing in between so i assume that is why there were no fire trucks or police yet. i consider myself blessed to not actually see anyone get killed .

 

Many of you are heros. The more you write the more sad tales I think of. Several other very bad motorcycle accidents during Bike Week events in the Daytona area, other tractor-trailer accidents, and the list goes on.
After moving to this fairly remote area of Florida there were several very bad bus, truck, and car accidents. How can you not see a large yellow bus with flashing lights in broad daylight?
Sadly, even after seeing bad accidents, some people do stupid things, like texting and other distracting things.
I'd rather write about happy things.

 

I volunteer in our local fire dept., so we can sometimes respond to bad accidents. The wreck that I would have paid money to see, no one was severly hurt, was a Ford Tarus jumped a house. Broke a few shingles off the crown, point of the roof then through a magnolia tree on other side. That was several years ago and the magnolia tree still has a car sized hole in the middle. Once again no one severly hurt. Driver went to sleep coming home from work, curve in the road car went straight and hit the embankment where driveway is and went over the house. She was in the "hat rack", shelf under rear window when she landed.