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The Horrifying Sound of the Accident

2014 Spectator Ron - The Spectator All Rights Reserved

C

        I saw the dark auto near the intersection. The red light had come on and in two of the three lanes cars had stopped to obey the red stop light. In the middle lane the speeding dark car continued on, passing cars and the passenger crosswalk and into the intersection. I was walking in the crosswalk, not yet reaching the half way. I continued watching the dark auto. Everything was in slow motion now. I noticed the lady driving the dark auto had her head down, she hadn’t seen the red light or noticed that she was racing through the intersection. She appeared to be reading a text message!
        As her car almost cleared the intersection going at a high rate of speed, her head remained downward, ostensibly reading a text message.
        Only a couple of seconds had elapsed when a yellow car, proceeding with a green light, accelerated, reaching the intersection and smashing into the dark auto broadside.
        I watched as the cars collided. But it was the sound, the horrifying sound of a two ton auto colliding with another two ton auto. Glass and metal shards flew into the air. Whole parts of two automobiles went skidding across the intersection. People shopping at stores a block away heard the stomach-turning reverberation and came running to the intersection. Both autos twisted, yanked and landed, one upright, one on its side, sixty feet from the impact site near a sign indicating the nearby “Town Center” shopping area.
        Two brave men ran to the darker auto and pulled the female driver from the car fearing a gasoline explosion. A man and a woman, who were waiting to cross the intersection ran to the yellow car and removed the other female driver, laying her gently on the grass adjacent to the “Town Center” sign.
        Of the dozen bystanders now assembled on the sidewalk near both cars most had drawn their cell phones from their pockets and were calling 911.
        I noticed that the red light had turned to amber, then green. Wide-eyed drivers accelerated through the intersection, dodging radiators, bumpers, floor mats, glass and metal.
        I saw one male driver in a large SUV with a cell phone pressed to his ear, breaking the law, playing the same odds that the lady in the dark auto had lost to a few seconds earlier.
         Within two or three minutes the Firefighters arrived. They quickly attended to the injured women. Other Firefighters made sure that no fire would result from the collision.
        Bystanders kept their cell phones against their ears. This time calling friends and relatives to tell them what they had just witnessed. 
       An ambulance quickly arrived and with dispatch took the driver of the dark auto to the hospital. Shortly afterwards the second ambulance reached the scene and toted the driver of the yellow car to a hospital. 
        I realized that all during the actual collision and the departing of the injured I was standing in the median strip observing the mishap start to ugly finish.
        The tow trucks came and hauled away what was left of the two cars, sweeping up the sidewalk and intersection.
        I continued my walk home, thinking two thoughts. One was remembering the terrible, violent sound of the collision. Secondly, I was wondering how important that text message was to that lady in the dark auto. Could any text message be that important?