Girl Hit By Car @ MindSay 
On my way home from Appleton tonight I begged my brother to stop the car at a gas station in Wautoma so I could pee. Nothing out of the ordinary felt like it was about to happen, but I couldn't ignore that feeling in my gut I so often get when I'm anxious, like an aching thud. There was a sweet young teenage girl of about 14 I encountered while I dried my hands in the restroom. As I remember her, the memory plays in slow motion, but while things were really happening, it was all so fast and seemingly so normal. The girl and I nod at each other, she smiles, I rub my hands with paper towel, nothing more spectacular than that. She leaves the restroom without washing her hands and literally runs out of the room and slams through the doors of the gas station convenience store as if it were on fire. As I finally head out, I see her quickly skirt around parked cars and out into what I thought was the vacant street...
Out of the darkness, moving faster than she could possibly run, a silver car with a missing front light cuts right into her path. I can't look away. I couldn't warn her. Nothing could be done. Within seconds I hear the crunch and see her doll-like body fly into the air higher than the roof of the gas station. She lands head and shoulders first several feet forward. The car comes to a halt just inches away from where she landed. The car had moved too fast. The girl ran out into the street too fast. I am shocked. I scream for my brother to call 911 on his cell phone. At first he doesn't understand why I am standing there so still. I want to run over to the girl but I am frozen. I know my brother is faster than I am. At least I managed to cry out, "She's hurt! A girl just got hit by a car!" So he springs into action and as I head into back into the car, I scream for my nephews in the backseat to avert their eyes. They are curious and want to see what's going on, but even from my distance I can see she's not moving and the last thing I think my nephews should see is a dead girl bleeding on the pavement. Somehow I managed not to cry. I am glad that my brother is attending to the girl and that no one is moving her. All I can think about is the smile she flashed me when we crossed paths in the restroom.
It's amazing how suddenly tragedy can happen.
While I sit in the car, I take my nephews' hands and we pray quickly and quietly to every God/dess of healing and protection I can think of. I'm too shocked to weep, all I care about, besides that girl, is that my nephews be kept safe and protected from the drama that unfolded. Within less than a minute, and just as we ended our prayer, sirens wail. I look back to see how my brother is holding up next to the too-still-car-hit girl. I see her hand lift upward, like she's begging. My brother is barking at other people who have gathered near. He's telling them all not to move her. By the time an ambulance comes, I take a deep breath, yet still I'm not satisified that she's going to be okay. I don't want to further alarm the boys. We had a fun time in Appleton today and it shouldn't be spoiled by this. The first thing that came out of my nephew Josh's voice was, "I guess from now on Nick and I should always look both ways..." Uh, huh. You got that right.
When my brother walks back I can smell he's sweating. We're both stressed and wonder if we have to hang around because I was a witness to the scene. Mark says when he asked the police if we needed to stay, they said nothing so he took that as a 'no' and we put our seat belts back on and all is quiet on the way back home. After we drop off the nephews to their mother's in Plainfield, Mark finally tells me what he went through with the girl. He told me that she was out cold for a few seconds and by the time she came to, she was begging for someone to help her up and get her purse which was lying in a ditch nearby. As other people came by to help, that's when Mark ordered them not to move her. An older, grandmotherly woman bent down to hold the girl's hand and assure her that help was coming and that she shouldn't move. Mark said that he was relieved to see the girl's hands moving, her chest heaving with breath, and that she was talking. However there was a pool of blood underneath her head and she was lying on her right arm as if it were dislocated. He feels that, from what he saw, that she most likely has a lot of broken bones and hopefully won't have too many internal injuries. Yes, we can only hope that, yet I am still uneasy after seeing her fly into the air the way she did.
I can only imagine what the driver felt. At least they did not leave the scene and stood by. Their windshield was totally smashed -- they must've hit her really hard to cause that much damage.
I've heard that some people who've been hit by cars survive with minor injuries, but I've also been witness to a fatal bicycle accident on Brady street in the east side of Milwaukee in the summer of 2004. I was stuck on a bus sitting near the back several feet above where the accident took place. Once it happened, we were stuck in the traffic and no one was let out of the bus. The body blocked the way out anyway. I'll never forget how pale that woman was lying like a broken puppet in the road while just a few feet away yuppies were enjoying their coffee and tea at Starbucks. Other people on the bus were deliberately ignoring the scene, looking at each other or at the floor. I was more disturbed by that than seeing a woman die on the street. The ambulance came roaring to the scene, but left it, body in tow, quietly and slowly -- an indication that the woman did not make it.
This accident scene was different. Everyone in the area came rushing out to see if they could help. This to me was good, showed that they cared, yet there was nothing we could do. Nothing like feeling helpless as you watch the broken girl delivered into the hands of paramedics...
I'm not sure what else to say tonight. I'm reminded of how fragile life is and how quickly accidents can take us out of our comfortable routines. I won't be completely fine until I hear that this girl made it out okay. And if I find out that she didn't, well, at least I can say my prayers and find some kind of peace. No matter what, it motivates me to do everything I can to make my own life worthwhile. For who knows how soon or how late death can come calling.
