Sunday, November 25, 2007

Automobile accident rescue on November 25, 2007

Automobile Accident Rescue on November 25, 2007

I wasn't in the accident, just came across it, and was the first person there. I was driving home from Terhune Orchards with Daniel and Sara. We went to get a pie and some other food from there. We bought their vegetable soup and a bag of donuts, and ate it at one of their picnic tables outside. We finished with eating their walnut apple pie.

We started to drive home and when we reached Lambert Drive and Rosedale in Princeton, I saw a wisp of smoke on my left in the t-intersection, it was around 4:10 pm. I pulled the car over, just before the right hand turn onto Rosedale. Now I could see it was a car that was smoking. It was turned around, so that the trunk was facing the telephone pole it had hit. The top of the telephone pole was still hanging, and the bottom was embedded in the car. The car was upside down. A man that was coming in the other direction got out of his car and I told him to call 911. I looked to the left, as I was facing the car and I thought there was a hot water heater on the ground, as I got closer I realized it was the transformer from the telephone pole, severed from the lines and on the ground.

I bent down and pressed my face against the glass to look in the car. I could make out a body not moving, crumpled in the tight space. I expected to see blood since the body wasn't moving, but there was no blood. I tried three times to break the glass with my cellphone, but the glass didn't break. Then I tried the door, and it opened easily. I reached in and the boy inside grabbed my hand and I pulled him out. He stood up, and was shaken but not hurt. The car engine was still smoldering, so I said we should back up. I could hear the other guy talking to 911 on his cellphone.

I then got in the car and left, as I was driving away three police cars were speeding to the accident.

I have seen many accidents so far:
  • The earliest was when I was a suburban park ranger in Paramus, New Jersey. I was driving to work. It must have been between 1976 and 1980. It was snowing and I was driving on Route 17 North in Paramus. I had already picked up my police radio form headquarters and I called in the accident. I ran up to the car. It had just slid and tapped into the concrete divider, then spun a bit. I was the car behind it. Inside the car the woman was covered in blood, it was running down her face. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt and her face hit the steering wheel.
  • The next car accident was with a fellow Ranger. Matt was driving his jeep like car, and he had other rangers inside. We were racing home, he was passing me, and I was passing him. We were on Farview Avenue heading toward the police station, and I was in the lead. Matt saw me slow down and pull to the right so he used the opportunity to pass me. Speeding up he pulled in front of me, then he realized why I had slowed to a stop. There was a car in front of me making a left hand turn. Matt saw the car as he was pulling ahead of me, but it was too late to stop. He pulled a hard right, and the side of his car with the spare tire hit the trunk of the stopped car, hard. Matt's car kept moving after it bounced off the stopped car, it hopped the curb, then started moving parallel to the road, and disappeared into tall bushes. I could see his tail lights, but the car had disappeared into the bushes. I ran up to the car, expecting them to be dead, but they were already getting out of the car.
  • The Garden State Parkway and Route 9 split. ...