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Being There
In the last hours of April fools day 1999, I was driving to
a local pub for a pint of Guinness when I drove up on some
cars parked close together, with their headlights lit, on
the other side of the road. In the median dividing the
four-lane road was another car, stopped kind of crooked and
unintentional. I could see the silhouettes of about fifteen
people in front of the first car on the far side of the
road. While I knew it was some kind of accident, not even
the car in the median seemed to be damaged.
Just as I passed by it, I saw a man lying face down on the
other side of the road. He was just in front of the
silhouettes and this vision told the whole story:
The car that was now haphazardly parked in the median, had
hit him.
What had taken me aback, was that no one was anywhere near
the poor soul laying in the gravel and grass on the side of
the road. At first, I thought that maybe he was dead and
they knew it, so they were keeping their distance. But a
strange instinct told me to do a U-turn and go to that guy
...
For whatever reason, it told me that he was not dead ...
That instinct was correct ...
As I walked through the faceless people standing in front of
the first car, I could see him lying there. He was taking
short, deep, labored breaths. I bent over him and heard a
gurgling sound. He was choking on fluid and in the lights of
passing cars, I could see the thick, red puddle that his
face was almost drowning in. I ran to my truck and retrieved
a towel. After I wiped the bloody fluid away from his nose
and mouth, his breathing eased and the gurgling stopped.
I looked at the people around me and I felt as though I was
in a dream. They all seemed to be looking at the whole
scenario as though it were on t.v. in their cozy little
living rooms at home. For a moment, I felt a rage at these
all too familiar "Rubberneckers". I just couldn't believe
that these vultures had stopped and gotten out of their cars
to look, and yet, not one had raised a finger to help!
But, when I looked back down at him as he took another
breath, the rage went away as fast as it had came. I turned
and bent over him and touched his bare, blood and scratch
covered back with my fingertips. Every few seconds or so
came another deep and yet short breath. They were almost
like spasms, as though he were having to force his lungs to
take the air.
I began to talk to him, even though I’m not sure why.
I just wanted to reach out to him somehow … to let him know
some one cared.
As I spoke, I looked at his injuries and assessed that they
were numerous and damaging. His left leg was a compound
fracture and there were a lot of scrapes and scratches from
his post-impact tumble down the road. But worst of all … was
a large dented wound to the top, right rear of his shaved
head. It wasn’t bleeding very bad, but it was at least four
inches wide and an inch or so deep. Another thing that shook
me a little was his age … He looked to be in his late teens.
Maybe his early twenty’s at best. I thought it strange that
he had been walking alone.
I spoke to him in a voice that I would use if I were
speaking to a friend I had bumped into on the street and I
told him to concentrate on the sound of my voice. I told him
to hold on and to keep taking those breaths for me. I really
believe that he could hear me because he seemed to be taking
these heaving breaths more often. I promised him that if he
could do that for me and not go to sleep until the ambulance
arrived, he would be o.k.
He stopped taking them for a moment, my lips closed together
and my breathing stopped for a moment as well. I bent down
over him and when I put my fingertips on his back again, he
took another breath. I started talking to him again and
assured him that I was still here. I again asked him not to
go to sleep on me, because he was going to be alright.
Just then, I could hear the ambulance coming up the road. As
I spoke again, I could hear the excitement in my own voice.
“You hear that my brother?” I said. “You’re home free … just
don't stop taking those breaths for me. I know it's hard,
but they're almost here and you’re gonna make it, I just
know it.”
He took a few more breaths, but just as the ambulance pulled
up ... he stopped.
I know it's incredibly pretentious of me to assume the
thoughts and feelings of another person, but I really felt
like it was all that he could do to take those breaths for
me ...
For him ...
But now that the ambulance was here, he felt that he could
rest. My heart sank.
As the three rescue workers, two men and a woman, piled out
of the van, I stepped away. The deputy, that had arrived
only moments after I had, coerced everyone else to the back
of the last car ... but not me. He said not a word to me and
I wondered if he had the same instinct about me being there
as I had had when I first saw the poor fellow lying alone on
the side of the road. I truly felt that I was supposed to be
here and, it seemed, the deputy thought so too. When I
looked at him, he gave a blank stare and turned to call the
trauma 'copter on his radio.
The first paramedic, who was now leaning over the
pedestrian, stood up and yelled out
"Has any one seen this guy breathing in the last few
minutes?”
My heart sank even deeper as I told him, with all the
urgency I could muster, that the pedestrian had been
breathing right up to the moment when they pulled up. He
nodded at me but didn’t speak. The others were busy opening
boxes of emergency gear and I don’t think they heard me at
all. When I looked back at the first one, he was kneeling
down to join his co-workers examining the injured youth.
They looked at his wounds and, after they put on their
rubber gloves, they rolled him over onto a backboard and
then placed a foam collar around his neck. I watched as the
third e.m.t. put a set of electric paddles on his chest and
I waited for the familiar jolt ... but it never came. They
looked and mumbled to each other and then removed the
paddles without even giving it a try.
I wanted so badly to scream out "Go for it Dude! If he's
gone, what have you got to lose?"
But … the words were just not there.
The situation had overwhelmed me …
Again … I felt like I was dreaming.
They put the backboard onto a gurney and lifted it up so
that the wheel assembly fell with a loud squeak to the
ground. For the first time, I could see the pedestrian’s
whole face … I was amazed to see that his eyes were now
open.
He seemed to be staring, with a peaceful smirk, into the
cool, star filled sky and I wondered if he could see or hear
anything at all. I looked out in the direction of his stare,
but all I could see was the dark outline of the trees on the
side of the road … and stars.
I watched the second e.m.t., a woman in her mid-twenties,
turn towards the deputy as the other two lifted the gurney
into the back of the ambulance. Her face was expressionless,
though it seemed to me that she working very hard to hide
her emotion. Her eyes were wide and she never blinked as she
spoke. Perhaps she was new, I thought. The deputy didn’t
seem to notice, he never looked at her face. In a monotone
voice, she told him not to bother with the 'copter ...
"This one's code", she said.
For someone who's so full of emotion, I can't say that I've
ever felt like I did at that moment. I looked at the deputy
and he gave me the same blank stare that he had given me
minutes before.
Without saying a word, I picked up my towel and my keys and
I walked back to my truck.
My head hung in a daze.
If this was a dream, it was a nightmare.
I threw the towel into my truck-box and climbed into the
drivers seat. I held the ignition key in my hand and watched
the ambulance pull away with its flashing lights on … but no
siren. I sat there for a minute or two, trying to chase off
the malaise that had overtaken me. When I finally did leave,
I quickly caught up to the ambulance. Not that I was
speeding really, but that the ambulance was in no hurry.
Through the rear windows of the large ambulance, I could see
two of the e.m.t’s sitting over him, talking. Their faces
were somber and calm. As I turned on my street and headed
home, I watched it drive on into the darkness. Its silence
was painful. I’d forgotten all about the beer. When I got
home, I sat at my computer desk and wrote this piece.
I don't imagine that I'll ever know why the pedestrian gave
up his fight by the side of the road on that clear April
night.
I know he was trying, I could feel it.
But I like to think that he heard my concern for him in
those last few moments …
that maybe he could feel it ... and that he didn't die
alone.
-Jeff Gaines
April 1st, 1999
EPILOGUE
For the next thirty days, I called the
county morgue to see if I
could find out the pedestrian's name and then maybe get in
touch with the his relatives. I’m not sure why I felt this
compulsion, or even what I would have said to them, in such
a horrible moment in their lives. I guess I just wanted them
to know that somebody was there with him. Maybe, I thought, it would
help ease their sorrow.
In those thirty days, I learned that he had had no
identification on him and, because no one had claimed the
body, nobody knew who he was. As the thirtieth day
approached, they actually asked me if I wanted to try and
claim the body for burial since I was the only person who
had shown any interest in the pedestrian ... I respectfully
declined.
He was never identified ... As far as I know, no one ever
came to claim him.
This frustrated me as almost much as that fateful evening. I was
told that he was cremated at the Pasco County Animal Control
incinerator and buried out near Dade City as a “John Doe”.
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