Happened on a wreck today...

[JW_Halverson]

The woman lost control on an icy patch under a bridge and rolled her SUV multiple times.  I climbed thru the windshield to assist.  She was hanging sideways in her seatbelt and was unhurt.  Emergency training basics came to mind and I told her she was staying where she was until the emergency responders arrived.  I held her head upright and supported her as best I could while praying and chatting with her. 

Meanwhile I saw some things that flat bothered me and made me do some thinking. 

1) Child safety seat lying loose in the back.  Why the @#$%% wasn't it properly belted in and locked down??!?!?!  If you have one of these in your car, stop reading right now and go get the instructions on installation and re-read them. Then go check to see if it is properly installed!  NOW!

2) All kinds of crap flew loose in the vehicle as it rolled.  Some of it was big enough to cause serious injury if it hit her.  I checked my Jeep and found that I had a bunch of crap that was loose and could conceivably become a missile in an accident....including a spare tire, a receiver hitch, and a couple of cinder blocks.  Stuff like that needs to be strapped down, or cargo netted. 

3) She was in 4 wheel drive high range at the time.  All 4 wheel drive does is allow you to accelerate faster.  It sure as heck doesn't do a thing when you hit an icy patch going faster than you should.  Doesn't help steer in a skid and has absolutely no effect on braking. 

The whole time I was there at the accident site I kept thinking about that same spot 4 years before.  A van spun out ahead of me and ended up in the ditch.  I saw them lose it and shifted my pickup into neutral.  I desperately tried to hold my line, but I too spun out and almost hit their van at 60 mph!  The next vehicle behind us spun out too, but she careened sideways into a retaining wall and was nearly killed. 

I'm probably not going to sleep well tonite. 

[bowsandroses]

What some people do is baffling at times for sure. Sounds like you did your job though and made the right calls for that I'm sure your remembered well. As for the rest well folks do what folks will do not as much we can do about that as we'd like so try not to lose to much sleep on it and hope you get enough of it.

[okie64]

Thats a bad deal JW but at least she wasnt hurt. Having loose objects in the vehicle is definitely something to think about, that has never even crossed my mind. You did a good thing by consoling her and praying with her till the medics arrived.

A few years ago I was driving down a busy highway and a truck pulled out in front of me at an intersection. I  locked up the brakes and missed him but as he continued trying to get across the highway an oncoming 18 wheeler t-boned him at about 65 mph and it wasnt pretty. The truck almost looked like it exploded as the big rig hit it and it was one of those sounds that I will never forget. I guess when we see something like that happen our instincts kick in and we automatically want to try to help the wounded so without even thinking about it I got out and ran up to the vehicle but unfortunately there wasnt anything to do to save this guy. It was a very helpless feeling just standing there at the vehicle till medics arrived. I lost a lot of sleep over the next couple of weeks. I just kept thinking to myself "What in the world was that guy thinking?" I later found out he was intoxicated but that still didnt help me sleep any better.

[lesken2011]

Thanks for the heads up, JDub. I will be checking all our vehicles for loose material and passing it on to family members.

[cracker]

I was traveling down a back road one night a few years ago and saw a set of tail lights reflected down an embankment as I looked closer I saw it was a minivan that had left the road and centerpunched a tree. I stopped to investigate and there was a woman still in the car she was badly stunned from the crash the car was smoking and I could smell wires burning so I got her out of there as quickly as I could and moved her to the front seat of my truck and called police. the thing that bothered me was the fact that there was a cell phone open on the dash just pinging away as text after text cam in. It didn't take a genius to figure out what caused this wreck. Police and fire showed up and stopped the van from burning but if I happened along the outcome might have been very different. Ron

[YosemiteBen]

Over the past few years we have lost several folks in the commuunity due to distracted driving. Winter conditions cause lots of accidents among the unprepared and those who always leave the house late and then have to speed to make up the difference.  Just yesterday an idiaot passed the whole line of cars at a holding light for a detour just to be in front so he did not have to pass them when the light turned green.  A little bit later a vehicle doing about 80mph went whizzing passed me and then had to jam the brakes for a good corner.  My drive to work is by no means a very straight road. Many people have died there and still the idiots abound.  I have also been on rescue crews and pulled people out of cars that have gone in the river, hit a tree, rolled over, hit head on....  Just last week near town a guy intentionally ran the family minivan into a tree trying to take out the whole family!  Thanks JW for the reminder that these things can happen. We should be prepared to encounter them everyday and hope that they don't!

[gstoneberg]

The accident I had in the fall of 2011 was scary like that too.  I had a truck battery from the deer lease directly behind my seat in the far back of the jeep.  The only thing that saved me was that I had a cooler in the back seat behind me as well.  When the woman came onto the freeway the wrong way and clobbered the guy in front of me who I then promptly clobbered again...that battery was launched forward.  It broke the seat back of the back seat and pushed the cooler forward breaking my drivers seat back attachment.  When the barrier finally stopped me I had deflated the air bag and was jammed between the steering wheel and the seat back.  I could not push the seat back, but I was able to slide sideways and get out the passenger door.  But if that cooler hadn't been there to prevent the battery from taking flight I might not be typing now.  Sadly, hauling batteries to and from the deer lease happens all too often.  I feel a little better with them in the bed of the pickup, but not much.

Anyway, I'm glad you were there for the woman JW.  I've gotten to where I pull over to text, or hand the phone to somebody else.  Life's too short.

George

[Patches]

You got me thinking now JW.  I have my granddaughter in my truck quite often, and I think that the car seat is properly fastened, but now I am going to make sure.  If I was to wreck and she was hurt because of my negligence, I do not know how I could live with that guilt.  Also, I have alot of crap rolling around the floorboard in the back seat where she sits (trailer hitch, handsaw, hammer, sledgehammers, etc) that I need to remove or fasten down.

One of my nephews was in a wreck about 10 years ago.  He works for a surveyor and they had the heavy tripods (with the big steel spikes on the end of each leg) in the back of the S-10 Blazer they use for work.  The tripods were laying in the back with the spikes facing the front.  He ran off the road and into a creek bank at 60 mph.  All those tripods flew forward and went through the back of both front seats, skewering him and his co-worker to the seats. They had several other injuries in addition to the spikes, but were unable to get out of the vehicle until help got there.  Luckily the Blazer did not catch fire. 
Now I have to use the same type of tripods for my job, and I am very careful which direction I place the spikes and how I lay them into the vehicle. 

[JW_Halverson]

This woman was on her way to pick up her child at daycare.  Could just as easily been on her way back with that kid in the carseat. 

I was nervous as a long tailed cat in a room fulla rocking chairs as I was driving home last nite.  Amnd no, I didn't sleep worth a dang.  Makes me think about EMT's and the law enforcement folks that are first on the scenes.  How do you folks do it? 

And thank you for doing it.  I mean that.

[H Rhodes]

Your welcome JW.  Twenty-seven years of law enforcement behind me and I have to say that fatal accident investigations are always tough to deal with.  It is an impotent, sickening feeling to look at someone's loved one all busted up on the road.  At least when it is a criminal act, you can busy yourself trying to catch the bad guy.  Accidents are just a senseless tragedy and there isn't anything you can do but paperwork, and that doesn't make it any better for the family.  There isn't a thing to do with that emotion.  I pray a lot.  Thanks for stopping and helping those folks out. 

[criveraville]

Scary stuff JW. Glad you were able to help her out. I put kids into cars everyday with siblings crawling around. No car seats, no seat belts..

Cipriano