11:21 p.m. - 2008-02-16
big day
I absolutely LOVED the movie Stardust. We just finished watching it and it is my favorite movie as of late. Totally fun and uplifting and funny. Watch it.
OK, so something crazy happened today. We went up to Seven Springs to go snow tubing with Kevin's litle brother Brandon. The three of us were in the car on the Turnpike - suddenly traffic abruptly stopped. We slowed down and began to move forward with the line of traffic. I saw the guard rail had been ripped away on the right and then I saw all of this stuff all over the road - like candy wrappers or garbage or something everywhere. We moved forward and then, up ahead lay a giant tractor trailer on its side. We pulled up and when we got to it, Kevin slowed down and I said "Pull up! Pull up! It might explode or something!" So we pulled up ahead of it and over to the shoulder and I jumped out and ran back to the overturned truck. (I know, it seems weird, probably - but I have just heard and read stories of where people are in trouble and no one helps and I am terrified of someday being stuck in a well or in a crashed car and no one helps me. So I just feel compelled to, I guess. Like if you always think someone else is going to do it, eventually you are going to be wrong. Plus, even if you can't actually do something, I think people feel safer and relieved that someone wants to help them. Then there's that whole Good Samaritan story. I digress.) There were three men getting out of their cars and were also running toward the truck - it was actually a really cool feeling, like this team formed out of nowhere and we all knew what to do or something. We determined that there was a lot of broken glass, some blood and that there were two people inside it - a man and a woman (the driver and his wife who had been asleep in the back.) They were both injured but more or less ok, especially if you could have seen how crushed and banged up this thing was. Two very small white dogs suddenly wriggled out of one of the broken windows. So I grabbed them and held them while the men climbed on top, actually the side, because the whole thing was on its one side. And they opened and held up the driver's side door. They helped the people climb out which took a long time because they were kind of bleeding and hurt and it was really smooshed inside, like not a lot of room to squeeze out. I held the dogs which, as a side note were the worst smelling dogs I have ever been near in my life, so I must admit that about 30% of my brain was going "Oh, jeez. Gross. Now my jacket is going to reek forever." But they were shaking and terrified so I kept holding them especially because it was amazing everyone was alive and it would have been a really sad ending to the story if the dogs ran into traffic and got hit. The woman had a probably broken nose and was bleeding from her face. She came over and was totally white and shaking. She wanted to hold her dogs but she was shaking too hard. This is when I noticed the clear-ish liquid running from underneath the truck, coming toward me. Hmmm. I thought - this is becoming less safe. So one guy who was a volunteer fire fighter - I said "Ummm, do you think that's bad?" He goes over to it and smells it and goes "OK! That's diesel fuel. Everybody back." So we move further down the road. Kevin came over and I sent him back to the car to make sure Brandon didn't get out or anything. It was then that I asked the woman what was in the back of the truck. She smiled and goes "Popcicles." She calmed down and took the dogs and thanked me and the guy who brought her over some baby wipes to clean the blood up some. THIS IS A REMINDER TO MYSELF AND OTHERS THAT A FIRST AID KIT IS A GOOD THING TO HAVE IN YOUR TRUNK.
At this point, I felt like everyone was ok and there wasn't anything else I could do and if we waited around for the police, there would be witness statements or something and that would mean being late for snow tubing, so I got back in the car and we left.
I am very sure that Brandon thinks I am crazy.
