Sometimes thoughts are not so much words, but impressions.

Copyright March 16, 2000, All Rights Reserved.
Yesterday, at 4:00 p.m. I watched a nine-year old girl get hit by a truck.

Impressions...

At a stopsign... redlight.... Beautiful little girl,crossing, wandering thoughtless in front of my truck, her brother behind, and an adult behind him...

Crossed the lane I was in, proceeded into the next lane

out of the corner of my eye,, a red truck, whizzing by me... thoughts... he's going to hit her...

then hitting her, bouncing her into the air, in a curve for 12 feet, landing on the ground as the truck whizzes by her, changes lanes to park out of traffic...

I open my door, run to her... her brother is dazed, standing there... silent... looking... the accompanying adult dazed, standing, quiet...

I see her boots, some 12 feet away... laying in the road... no one is moving.... all are watching...

I kneel... she is in a fetal position... her left arm is raised stiffly into the air.. I look into her eyes... 

she is in shock.. no pain.. no thought... stiff... muscles contracted as a super torniquet... holding her body together...

the driver of the truck comes.. I curse at him... "you ran the light!" I say... "it was green" he says... I do not know...

her arm softens.. comes down to relax.. and the blood starts... from her nose and from her mounth... on to the pavement, thick red, shiny...

and her eyes.. so pretty blue.... so bright but unseeing... staring... no muscles move.. still held in shock...

and then ever so slightly, she takes a breath... small. but she is alive. someone says "call 991.." someone else says "I have... they're on their way..."

I stare at her, cover her with the driver's jacket..

such beautiful eyes... such beautiful teeth, so white against the red...

and I think she is like an animal, and hope that it is not as bad as it appears to me... like the last seconds before I say "sorry, buddy..." I do not want to say that here...

and a cop comes... and he tells her his name is dave... and more cops come... and they buzz around... and a fire truck comes... and they buzz around... and finally an abulance comes...

and I give my name, and I go to my own truck and wait...

and she screams and she cries, and her grandmother comes, and wails,and they put the grandmother into the ambulance.... and the girl screams again, loudly..

and I am relieved, because if she can cry, and she can scream, and if she can feel the pain, and be afraid, then she is alive... dying things do not fight... they go into and stay in shock.. and the shock is the protection that allows them to fade from life...

but she is not in that protection.. she is in pain... and she is crying.... and she is alive...

and they move her to a board... and then they work on her, and she continues to scream, and I feel so much better, because if she can scream, then she has lungs... and air, and she can use her ribs with strength and does not have shallow breathing, or pouring blood in her lungs... that is good, considering that she could have been worse... she could be gone... dead. with me looking at blue eyes that were alive and now glass... losing the shine...

but she is screaming... and her grandmother does not know that her crying is a good sign... her grandmother is in guilt... she crossed ahead of the girl, her brother, and the other adult...

the other adult is in guilt, because she allowed the children to amble into traffic while she lingered, caught in her own oblivion... unaware of the charges she had... she is silent.. she is thinking... show knows, but wil never tell anybody... ever... because she could have prevented it.. all of it... by holding a hand, by looking.. by knowing the charges she had... but she was dreaming, and the girl is on the stretcher now...

and they put her into the ambulance, and they close the door, and it drives away...

and the cop comes to ask me what I saw... and I tell him...

and he leaves.. and I leave...

and she is in my mind, and her eyes are so bright blue. and her teeth are so white against the red, and she is so stiff. and I wonder if she is alive... but she cried, she yelled, and she felt the pain, so I feel she is okay... and I continue to canadian tire to buy a battery...

and then I go home...

And it is today...

And she doesn't go away...

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Published by The Timmins Daily Press, March 16, 2000.
An unidentified victim of a rush-hour vehicle-pedestrian accident
at the intersection of Algonquin Boulevard and Pine Street is
placed on a stretcher shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
The Timmins Police Service, South Porcupine OPP, Timmins Fire
Department and ambulance crews responded to the scene. Traffic
on both thoroughfares was blocked off for roughly 15 minutes as
the scene was cleared.