Sunday, December 14, 2008

karma et al

Technodoll made me think of an incident that happened to me way back when with her recent post . So in the spirit of this season I hate horribly....I'll tell a little story that for some reason I forgot about and TD's story reminded me of.

I used to be a dog groomer, I had my own business in my home and I picked the pets up and deivered them in order to get around a city ordanance that kept me from running my home business if I didn't have enough parking available etc. It wasn't a bad thing, I picked up alot of elderly clients that didn't drive anymore etc, and I loved most of them.

So I was driving up a big local artery, taking a cocker spaniel home (I don't remember her name), it was freezing raining, winter. As I was driving I witnessed a taxi cut off a small car, and the person driving it lost control and hit a light standard, hard. Front of the car completely crumpled.

So I pulled over and ran over to help the driver. There were a few other people who had done the same thing, but I got to the driver and started to check her over to find out how she was hurt, and called 911. I relayed all the information to them, they assured me an ambulance was on it's way. During this time, a few of the men wanted to pull this woman from the car, but unless there's imminent danger of explosion or fire, you don't do that, you could injure her worse, so I ordered them around to find something to cover her up with to keep her warm, I was afraid she was going to go into shock.

So I talked to this stranger, held her hand, asked her what hurt (ankles that were trapped in the car and a wrist were injured from what she was telling me in her dazed state) and she kept repeating that her husband was going to kill her for having an accident. She asked me if I would call her husband for her and let him know she'd had an accident, so I did, but he wasn't there so I left a message (I can't imagine there's anything worse than hearing a stranger on your cell phone telling you that your wife has had an accident), told him what had happened and that if he wanted further info he could call me.

So I held her hand and told her everything was going to be ok until the ambulance came, wanted to keep her from losing consciousness, it hurt, I would have...

So the ambulance arrived, took info from me, as did the police and fire department, and they released me, having taken the husband's contact information.

I drove the dog home, after telling my clients about the reason for the delay, and then headed on home. As I was going down the same road, the husband called me. Asking me if I knew where the ambulance was taking his wife. I had no idea, but the fire department was still cleaning up the site and waiting on the tow truck. So with the husband on the phone, I stopped and asked the firemen, they called the dispatch and found out the hospital, I relayed the info, and the husband thanked me profusely and went to meet his wife.

Unlike Technodoll, I got to hear the end result. The husband called me a day later to thank me for helping his wife, that she wanted to thank me herself but she was pretty banged up, 2 broken ankles and a broken wrist, the car completely totalled, but that he was glad I had stopped and held her hand while she was pretty hurt and pretty scared.

Can't tell you how happy I was to hear from him....closure I guess....and I was happy to help her, and I'd do it again in a minute.

3 comments:

Technodoll said...

Oh! My goodness that is an amazing story... it made my eyes water. If I ever go through something horrible like that, I really hope such a guardian angel would be there for me...

They say it always takes the first one to stop and help and then the others follow.

We need to be those first ones.

Always.

Karma loves an angel :-)

Tonya said...

good for you! It's nice to know people are really kind and would take that time to get good information and to just be there to hold someone's hand. I'm sure they will never forget you for that.

myself said...

I always stop if there's an accident, because I'm a certified First Aider, I should, with CPR and all... And for some reason I hold a cool head in a crisis (as in don't move the injured person!).

And then I have a melt down later :)