I was crossing a main London road that was surprisingly quiet for that time of the evening. As I was on the traffic island I recall my gaze being drawn back to two young girls who were laughing and giggling with each other on the pavement I had just come from. About ten seconds later I was already several strides into my walk on the other pavement when I heard the strangest of sounds. It sounded like a very large plastic bag packed full of that autumn's leaves being hit hard by a cricket bat. As I turned around to see where the noise came from my eyes caught sight of a training shoe, lit by the street lights, arcing high in the air from near the crossing to further up the road beyond me.
The force required to propel the shoe like this must have
been massive and then it occurred to me that the sound I had heard must have
been a car slamming into one of the girls I had spotted earlier. And there it
was. Almost opposite me on the other side of the road was a now stationary car.
I could not see the girls or driver at this moment but I knew it was a terribly
grave situation and immediately dialed 999 to request an ambulance, paramedic
and police. With the emergency operator,
who had by this time dispatched the ambulance, still on the line I crossed back
over the road to the scene of the accident. I found myself on the pavement,
looking through the railings running up from the crossing-point, to a semi-conscious young girl, under the car, just in-front of
the wheel. She was clearly in a bad way, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Having described the situation to the operator, I responded to
his advice to try and reassure her and keep her awake, but without moving. I
then became aware of other people. The other girl must have run off to fetch a
mother and brother. They were now in the road in-front of the car. The mother
was terribly distressed and the young man, clearly agitated that the ambulance had
not yet arrived. I passed my phone to the young man so that he could be updated by the operator. By now a small crowd was
building. I do not ever recall seeing the driver and, strangest of all, I never
heard the car before the impact, never heard any screaming and the only wailing
came later from the mother.
We waited what seemed ages for the ambulance. Trying to keep
the young girl awake was virtually impossible. She was in her own world on the floor,
writhing slightly, lapsing in and out of consciousness. The young man handed
the phone back and, probably having taken more instructions from the operator,
placed his jacket over her body for some warmth. We said what we could to try
and reassure her, to keep her awake and to stop her from moving when she
clearly was, and waited. It was a strangely quiet evening on the roads for this
part of central London.
Maybe there were major snarl-ups elsewhere and that is why we also seemed to be
waiting an age for any emergency people to turn up. Eventually they started to
arrive.
The first to turn up was a fire engine. Presumably someone
else had called it in: I have no idea as to how these things are dispatched.
Then, probably two minutes later, after what were probably an unacceptable
fifteen minutes wait, which had felt like hours, an ambulance pulled up in-front
of the car and the paramedic rushed to the victim.
At that point my services as someone with a phone on scene were no longer needed and I felt in the way. The operator agreed there was no more for me to do, I conveyed my hopes to him that things turned out well and then left. Could I have
done more had I had first aid training? I am not sure. I walked on home, and
never found out what either led to the accident or happened to the poor girl. I
hope dearly that she made a good recovery, but the sound of the impact, the
sight of her trainer flying through the air and sight of her lapsing in and out
of consciousness did not look good. They have stuck with me. Part of me would
like to know the outcome, but another part is both afraid of what the answer
might be and, besides, it is not really my business. I did what any citizen
should do in that situation. I dialed 999 within 10 seconds of the impact and then
applied the directions I took from the emergency operator. Throughout my time on the phone with the emergency operator I had been lucid, practical and compassionate as required. When I got home, for the first time in many years, I wept.
This recollection is here for several reasons.
Even though it is unlikely that good first aid knowledge
would have helped directly, particularly as I was already talking to the emergency
operator before I got to the victim, it could have alleviated some of the
distressing disorientation I felt and that may have also indirectly improved
the reassurance I was trying to offer the victim. We could all do with much more first aid knowledge.
Without doubt, this is also a cathartic post. I have never
before recounted these memories in such detail. Given
that this situation involved a poor girl and her friends and family having such
a terrible experience, I have felt guilty for harboring this as a traumatic
experience for me, just as an onlooker.
Probably most importantly, for a site dedicated to security
and safety, the most pressing reason is this is an attempt to frame in words a
visceral experience that could relay to kids and others,
the need to properly pay attention when crossing roads. I did not hear the car.
The kids probably did not hear the car. This was not a silent electric car
either, but a standard middle of the range saloon. Prior to seeing the girl
under the car, the only thing I heard was the impact and the only thing I saw
moving was her training shoe, thrown high into the air, lit by the street
lights.
Kids especially need to be reminded, repeatedly, not to
allow themselves to be distracted, to pay especial attention to potential
dangers when they are crossing roads, else terrible, life-changing accidents
can happen in a flash.
If anyone can take aspects of the above real life experience
and apply it to the task of making kids pay more attention when crossing roads,
please do.
