I wasn't going to node about this at all - nevermind a crappy daylog node - but some of you seemed actually concerned. So instead of noding it on the day it all went down, I'll node it today, when I feel well enough to share it all with you.
There I am, walking back to the parking lot from
where I work. It's
humid. I'm whistling
Ben Folds, looking up at the nice apartment building in the distance, thinking how nice it would be to afford the accomodations. I see three women standing at the corner on the other side of the lights, with a young child (she is just over 2 years old, something I find out later of course) holding a
balloon. It is red, ironically enough. The
little white man is waving me across, but the
red hand tells the three women and child to stay put.
I reach the corner. What happens next happens in
slow motion, both then and now.
As I approach the sidewalk from the roadway, the girl (Stacey, 2 years old) loses her balloon. The women are facing the
Tim Horton's on the corner. I take another step. The girl's face lights up as the chase begins. She takes two steps out into oncoming traffic, which is racing to beat the inevitable
yellow light. I take another step, this time towards the girl. The three women haven't noticed anything yet. The girl takes two more steps (smaller than mine, but at a faster pace, as there is a red balloon's life at stake!). I take my third step, into the second lane from the curb, and I finally manage to shout at the girl as I grasp the sleeve of her T-shirt. The women finally notice.
Then Stacey loses her red balloon, I lose Stacey, and things really begin to slow down.
The first
vehicle to strike me is the yellow
pick-up truck. Luckily it was slowing down, seeing what was taking place. It strikes me in my right side, spinning me around, forcing me to let go of Stacey (who has wide eyes). The
pain begins immediately, and I am pushed forward.
Stacey is pushed away from me, and we are struck almost simultaneously by the second vehicle: a white
Honda Civic. I am falling forward, so it's my head that hits the hood of the car first, spinning me up the car towards the windshield. Stacey goes under the vehicle.
My last vision before things go dark? Stacey being picked up by what turned out to be her step-mother. She is limp, bleeding. I wonder what I look like, leaning against the Civic, throbbing and dizzy. Do I look like
that?
My
hospital stay was uneventful, due mostly to the fact that I made sure the
nurses knew never, NEVER to
skimp on the
painkillers. The strangest feeling was that my head felt detached, not part of my body. I remembered reading
D. E. Harding's "On Having No Head", and now know what he was writing about. I had severe bruising from where the truck hit me, and injuries to both my head and neck from the second
impact.
X-rays,
CAT scans, examinations. No permanent
damage. My hands shake and I can't focus my vision for long periods of time. I
limp slightly and I can't bend over without help. It will go away.
Stacey's
rib cage is shattered, apparently from being run over by the Civic. Internal bleeding, head injuries. I get information in little
snips, partly due to my drugged state, partly due to the fact that her parents didn't talk to me, not once. She will be somewhat
disfigured I would assume, but the good news is that she should have all of her faculties intact. She will
live.
Should I be upset that I didn't make the evening
news? I'm not really, although my friends think I should be. They called the
station, the radio, the papers. I get no mention in any of them. Frankly, I don't want the mention. I know that I sent
Rob out to inform everyone I felt fit to tell, and he did that wonderfully (getting me
cursed on
E2 twice, in the process, and feeding
EDB well I hear!)... why should I care about anyone else knowing?
I got no thanks from Stacey's parents or families, maybe because I failed in saving their little girl. They didn't visit, they didn't call, they didn't talk to me. I expetced a lawsuit; apparently they just don't want anything to do with me. I know I would be upset if someone tried to save my loved ones, and didn't succeed. She didn't die, but I had nothing to do with that.
Some people (here at E2 and elsewhere in my life) called my actions "
heroic." They weren't. Heroes demonstrate
bravery, accomplish goals, make a difference. I just reacted, and I paid for it. Would I do anything differently? Will I dart out into traffic in an attempt to help a little girl with a balloon again? If I have to, yes. Does that make me a hero? I don't think so. Please don't cheapen the concept of
heroism on my incident.
Again, I probably shouldn't have written about this. I felt I had to. Again,
Everything comes to the
rescue. I can write it out, and then get on with my
recovery. An
event in a
timeline of events. But here I can
share it,
preserve it,
forget it.
Ok, enough of the dark stuff. I started keeping a list of the people who sent me well-wishes and really seemed to care, but it got long and complicated. I used to think that E2 really didn't notice me; I was (almost) dead wrong. For all of you that messaged, tried to call, looked for me, or even cursed me, I thank you. Everything is a comm-, oh you know that already!
Wow. I just realized how ironic it is that I noded THIS the same day all of THAT happened. Wow.
UPDATE: Apparently I did make the 11 o'clock news the day after. They mispronounced my name. Whoot whoot.