Fatal Accidents

I think mainly because they were kids. It was also my first traumatic injury scene. As a soldier I was better trained to deal with injuries and a part of your mind expects the worst when going into a bad situation so I was better mentally prepared. Nothing could prepare me for a 5 year old bleeding all over me while her father was dying in the car 30 feet from me. I was only 16 and still thought I was bulletproof at the time. That was a key moment in my life that changed the way I looked at things from then on.

I got over it and moved on. I don't have nightmares or anything, but it has affected me and changed me for sure.

 

when i was 10 i saw a accident involving a log truck on a wet road out from decauter al. a car pulled out in front of the truck and the truck had no choise but to hit his brakes the logs broke loose and hit the cab the driver didnt make it his body was cut in half part in the road the other part in what was left of the truck. still to this day that sticks in my mind every time i see a log truck

 

I had ridden my bicycle out to a friend's house in the country. My friend offered to drive me back as far as the city limits where I would return home on my bicycle. As we were making a right hand, blind, turn on the secondary road a car ('73 Chevelle 4-door) coming the opposite direction slammed into the front of the pickup ('69 Ford 1/2-ton) we were in.

There were four passengers in the car; a married couple and two of their granddaughters. The male driving was dead, the female front-seat passenger was laying in the footwell with a broken back, the granddaughters were virtually unharmed in the back seat.

My friend was unconscious for a time with severe gashes to his head from the steering wheel. I was virtually unhurt except for some pulled back muscles (which turned out to be more severe, but not permanent), and a blackened nail where my hand had hit the dash.

It took a long time to get help. We were in an area with sparse population and little to no traffic to begin with and there were a number of events that had people away from home for the day. I ended up running about five to six miles before I finally found a home with someone in it. Unfortunately the first help were young children who couldn't tell the police exactly where we were. All in all, I seem to recall it took more than an hour before the police and ambulance arrived. There was no doubt, however, that the male driver was dead at impact.

Later, two tow trucks arrived and tried to pull the wreckage apart, but were unable to. So, a third truck showed up to assist. They still couldn't seperate the vehicles. They ended up loading the wreckage onto a flat-bed.

I don't really think about and I don't feel anything for the deceased. He made an extremely poor decision that resulted in his death and permanent, life altering, injuries to others (his wife became a paraplegic). Although my friend was underage (14 at the time, I was 15, we could get a driver's license at 16), there were no charges (underage drivers in rural settings was not unusual). Other than being underage, my friend was driving on the right side of the road and at a reasonable speed. The driver of the other car was cutting the corner and was speeding.

There was a civil trial in which my friend and I were named (I ended up being the primary witness as no one else remembered anything about the accident and there were no uninvolved witnesses). The reality of the trial though was that the granddaughter's mother didn't get as much as she felt she deserved from the male's estate so she was suing virtually everybody within a 10-mile radius of the accident.

I've seen the results of several others (some much more gory), but that's the closest I've been.

Oh yeah, the drive out there the next day with my friend's father who had flown up from Houston was probably the most traumatic ride of my life, and I was a pretty nervous passenger for the next 6-8 months.

 

I killed a drunken pedestrian back in April of 2004 while innocently on my way at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning to go get a load of gasoline with my own truck. I had just left my house after 14 hours off (log book was there to prove it thank God,) with a coffee riding nicely in the holder on the floor.
A little foggy, drizzly and tough to see that morning. There were several cops with customers in town giving DWI's, so my behavior was at it's best. I only had a 50 mile trip to go load, then another 300 miles to complete a typical Saturday's work in the tankerworld.
An oncoming buddy of mine warned me on the radio of some dude staggering up the shoulder on his side (eastbound) of the road. I acknowledged and thanked him for the tip. Wasn't 5 minutes later, I get up to the posted 50 mph speed limit, when before I could say OH S*#!, BANG!!! I had hit a human being at 50 MPH square with the grill of my 379 Pete. He stumbled from the eastbound side of the 2 lane road into the middle, then over into my westbound lane, and it was just foggy and drizzling enough where I couldn't see or do a thing. If I coulda, I woulda...believe me.
I stood on those brakes and skidded 100+ feet to a stop. I got out trying to process all this in my mind, and got back by the trailer wheels, when a little white Subaru was parked behind me, the driver was screaming at me, and his wife or whatever was in hysterics. He kept telling me to "go back and check him", referring to the victim laying in the road. I took one too many shouts from this guy, and instinctively raised my hand like I was going to whack him out of nervousness I guess, and he shut up. I said "YOU GO CHECK HIM"! but he said he couldn't get involved, he was headed to the Albany, NY airport to catch a plane for a vacation, and left.
Immediately a volunteer fireman showed up, then the cops, then everybody in the world it seemed. I was taken to the police station for all the necessary questioning, etc. I must admit, I wasn't my normal, jolly self for about 4-5 hours that day. I was in disbelief, shock, denial, everything I could have been, I was and rightfully so.
The cops were excellent to me the whole time. I was being questioned and they wanted to know if I could think of anything else to add. I said, "there's this one thing", and told of the white Subaru with the guy who left the scene going to the airport.
Sweet justice prevailed that day, because the cops did their homework. They found the car parked at the airport, found the guys name and flight, and a few hours later, the Georgia State Police escorted him and his hysterical wife off the plane in Atlanta, and gave them a citation for leaving the scene of an accident, and several more...
7 hours later and many questions, I was free to go. I was taken back to the truck that was parked with the road closed since the accident by the insurance adjuster of the company I was leased to. The cops and locals I knew all asked who was going to tow my truck home. I said nobody's towing nothing, I'll drive it home. I drove it back to the house and stuffed it nose first into the weeds so my wife wouldn't see the caved in grill and bent bumper, but you know how those women are...it's like they have that mental telepathy or something. She came running outside wondering why I was home so early, why the truck was parked that way, etc., etc.
I had to break it to her, and of course she freaked, but I told her to forget it.
She asked me how I could handle such a thing. My outlook on the deal was that I was happy it was me involved, rather than some poor elderly woman or man, just driving down that road and have that happen to them. That would have possibly affected someone of a weaker mindset in such a negative way, they may never recover. I just figured I'm already half nuts as it is, and now I could say I have officially hit everything there is to hit in the road now. Things like wooden blocks, tire schrapnel, animals,battery boxes and PEOPLE...
Bottom line, you can't run 100K+ miles a year for as many years as I and many of us have, and not have the law of averages come into effect in some way, shape or form.
I rested on Sunday, and Monday morning jumped right in the saddle again, and headed to Albany and got a load of oil. All morning long I'm getting the "Poor MountainMan" jabber on the radio, I had to shut it off. It was the topic of the week among the regulars and locals I ran/worked with, and the caved in grill didn't help much. I finally removed the grill 2 days later and ran without the grill and bumper to shut everybody up.
After a couple weeks, I recieved a check from the insurance company and stuck a grill in and a new 21" Texas bumper, and it was truckin' as normal...
To be honest, night driving bothered me for about 3 months afterwards, till I finally convinced myself I was feeling sorry for myself, and got over that too.
If you want to run with the big dogs they say, you gotta get off the porch...
I often think of what John Wayne or General George Patton would do in a particular situation. That seems to help me through these kind of circumstances. Neither one of those men would whimper, so I'm not going to either...
As for the record, I ended up with a "fatality, not at fault" on my MVR. The statute of limitations is 3 years from date of incident for any repercussions, and I never heard a thing from anyone. I expected some sleazebag lawyer to send me a letter saying I ruined somebody's family just before the statute ran out, but I was spared that too.
A carload of kids that were out partying with this dude I hit stopped at the police station the next day (Sunday) and filed a report stating they were drinking with him till 1 a.m. and wanted to give him a ride home. He refused and got a ride over the state line to NY state, where the bars stay open till 3 or 4 a.m. That was his mistake. Those kids actually helped me out immensely with their statement, even though they never met me nor knew who I was.
The victim was 29 years old, and celebrating his last day of work at the ski area he worked at for the season. Pretty dumb way to celebrate in my opinion, and he didn't make my day any brighter either.
Oh well, that's life in the big city...another day in paradise.

 

I have not and I hope that I never do. My mom on the other hand has. To start off she is a RN at the local hospital and she worked in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). I really do not mean this in any negative way but she has learned to deal with death. She was southbound from work on State Road 162 in Indiana. There was a Dodge Dakota driving at high rates of speed and swearving all over the road. The driver tried to pass another truck on the right side of the road. There were five people in the truck. Only two made it. Two died on impact of the tree that they had hit. The third one was thrown from the truck. My mom went to see if she could help in any way. The driver was pleading with her to save his girlfriend (the one thrown from the truck). Mom told me later that when she got over to the young girl she knew that there was nothing that she could do. She had already passed but yet she performed CPR to ease the mind of the driver. She was later yelled at by a police officer because she should not have been there. One of the EMT's on scene knew mom and defended her being there. After test results from the driver it had turned out that he was in fact high on marijuana.

After some time mom was called upon by the state police to answer a few questions for them about the accident and then called upon to testify in court about what she had seen and done. The case never went to trial. The driver plead guilty. (This may sound bad) Mom told me that she would never help at an accident again. She said that it was not worth the trouble that she had to go through as a witness. She was even madder about the misinformation that was being reported on the news and in the papers about the accident. It was reported in one paper the my mom had pulled the girl from the truck and performed CPR on her when in fact the young girl had been thrown from the truck.

 

Back in roughly 99 I was heading south on I. 15 in Nevada at about the 70 mile marker. Had been driving way to long and was about 4:30 in the morning. Running about 78 and was passed by another truck. He may have been running 80.
He was maybe 150 yards in front of me, still in the left lane when I see a car going north turn into the median. I just knew they would stop but they didnt. The driver of the other truck had no chance in my opinion. He hit them broadside and sort of rolled up over them.There was a family of three in the vehicle but none made it. The driver of the other truck was ok physically.
I hope I never see anything like that again in my life.
The people in the car were unrecognizable. It ended up that they had stayed the weekend in vegas and headed back home. They missed their exit for U.S. 93 north and decided to make a U-turn

 

Not to change the subject but I can sympathize with you as I am a former railroader and I know how these things can stick with you. I was working a train to Bakersfield back in 2003, two weeks before christmas and we hit a pick up truck at a grade crossing doing 79mph in Corcoran. He thought a parked freight train was causing the signals to go off and went around 4 cars right in front of us. I remember watching the bed of the pick up bouncing a 1/4 mile down the tracks. The local emergency responders made it the scene before I could walk all the way back. Glad I didn't have see the body. It was a guard from the prison trying to get home for his daughters birthday. I still thing about it. Especially at Christmas time. I would suggest getting some counselling, they provide that to the railroaders.

 

I was working as a contractor in Iraq in 2006 and watched a soldier die as a result of a mistake some of the drivers I was working with made. One of our trucks got stuck in some gravel on a base. The lead driver had the bright idea of using load chains to try to pull it out. Bad mistake. Load chains are not towing chains. So the chain shattered under the pressure and flew in all directions like shrapnel. A small chunk hit a soldier in the neck who was working with us. He was bleeding profusely but we couldn't stop the bleeding without blocking his air passage.

A terrible experience, especially, since I felt partly at fault because the people I was working with caused it. I knew it was a stupid idea using those chains but didn't say anything. It was fully investigated and the lead drivers were fired but not prosecuted.

I can still see that soldier's eyes looking up at me as he lay there bleeding to death. R.I.P. Brock Bucklin