American Samaritans
A couple of weeks ago I was driving to San Jose
and the car about three cars ahead of me on the interstate decided to make an
inexplicable hard left turn onto the center median. The car rolled
two-and-a-half times before coming to rest on its
roof.
Roughly 40 cars -- almost
everybody -- immediately stopped on the left shoulder, from both sides of the
road, and dozens of people rushed to the scene of the accident. There were so
many people there that if somebody had been trapped under the vehicle, we could
have lifted it off of them and carried the car
away.
We got the woman out of her car.
She had been wearing her seatbelt, so she was mostly OK, though bruised and
rattled. Within two minutes, 95% of us determined that everything was handled,
and got back into our cars to go on our
way.
It was somehow heartening to see
near 100% participation in folks who saw the accident stopping to help. Most
often, we drive by 5 minutes after the accident, when we're no longer needed,
and there's no point in doing anything except driving by and rubbernecking,
feeling vaguely guilty about not helping.
Filed Sun - April 23, 2006, 06:50 PM in
Return to: |