It IS a Small World After All!

     "I need you to call me when you can.", said the text message.

    "I'm still at the museum.  Can I call you in a while?", I asked.

    "No.  I need to talk to you now.  5-10 minutes tops, but please", came his response.

I obliged and he answered his phone immediately, proceeding to tell me about the past 45 minutes of his day:

On his way to a work meeting, approaching a traffic light behind a gray Toyota Sequoia, he observed debris suddenly being hurled wildly in the air in front of the SUV.  Upon slowing down, he saw a black sedan, resting idly, and nearly nose to nose with the larger vehicle - both with twisted hoods, flattened tires, mangled bumpers and side panels, and the interior of each car partially obscured by the airbags that had deployed upon impact.

With nowhere else to leave his car, he pulled onto the sidewalk and sprung out of his vehicle.  Realizing that the woman in the Sequoia was not injured, they gave each other a "thumbs up", and he turned his attention towards the sedan, noticing the crippling damage to the driver's side.  Approaching the car, the man could see the driver behind the wheel, much of her concealed by the now-collapsed pillow of air that had likely saved her life.

The man tugged hard at the disabled car door until it gave way. 

    "Help me...please....", implored the driver whom he estimated was close in age to his own          grandmother.

    "I'm right here.", the stranger assured her.

    "I don't know what happened?", the lady offered.

    "Ma'am, you were in an automobile accident and I'm going to help you.  I need you hold         your hand straight up like this.", 

demonstrating the vertical position he wanted her to maintain until he could run back to his own car and find something, anything, that he might be able to use as a tourniquet. 

    "Call 9-1-1!", he ordered the onlookers.

Returning to the woman, and lacking any first-aid training, he used a spare T-shirt from his car, to fashion a tight bandage around her injury to staunch the bleeding from her badly broken wrist.

The paramedics arrived, extracted the woman from her vehicle, loaded her into the ambulance and left for the hospital. 

The police officers on the scene recorded the stranger's statement, accepting the business card he handed them, should they need to contact him further.  He exchanged phone numbers with a woman named "Patty", who had seen some of what happened, and told him to please keep her posted if he heard anything about the condition of the driver.

The gentleman began walking back to his abandoned car on the sidewalk, and only then, realized that he was no longer wearing a shirt.  Soaked in blood, the paramedics had removed it from him, then provided supplies with which he could clean the residual fluid of her life off of his own chest, still feeling the unnatural pounding of his heart beneath it. 

Our exchange continued via text:

    “…I’m telling you it was so bad, and all my body told me to do was run right towards it and     check on everybody.  I can’t stop shaking.”

And then:

    “Would anyone have done that for my Nanny?”

    “Yes, I believe someone would have...”, I offered.

Perseverating on the details of the woman’s injuries, I suggested that, perhaps he was still in shock.

    “Is that a real thing? I mean I didn’t expect to see or deal with what I saw, but no one else         would do anything.  Everyone just stayed on the sidewalk.”

I explained:

    “Shock is a real thing and people experience trauma in different ways.  You DID                         experience trauma today and, luckily, you were clear-headed enough to provide care             quickly and accurately.”

The flow of our conversation was interrupted by a message he received.  The driver of the Sequoia had reached out to him:

        “….Thank you so much for helping me and my daughter today during the accident…We         went to the hospital and all is good - no obvious injuries so far…Thank you again and I             appreciate everything you did…”.

    “Couldn’t make it up if I tried.”, he went on. “And that’s not even the woman I took care of. That’s the lady     that just wanted a hug.”

Reiterating something I have always espoused:

    “…I don’t believe in coincidences.  You were meant to be there today, and you will                     eventually know the reason.”

By now, the man just wanted to find out if the driver was okay. After phoning the nearest hospital:

    “They can’t give me any information because I never got her name and I’m not family or         staff.  I’ll never know.”, he lamented.

At this last text, my stubborn streak, or rather, my tenacity, reared its head, and I began phoning hospitals, EMT stations, and police precincts, relaying what I knew about the accident - trying desperately just to find out where the woman had been taken. 

After about the sixth call, I struck oil!! Without divulging her name, anything about her condition, or even an exact confirmation of having received her as a patient, the person on the other end of the line mentioned that they did have a couple of people in their emergency room who might fit the description that I had shared. 

Texting the name of the hospital to the man, he thanked me for my persistence. Following a brief hiatus in our messaging, I received this photo from him:

He was on his way to the hospital.

Arriving there, flowers in hand, the man explained to the staff who he was, as well as the nature of his visit.

    "If she's here, will you please ask if she will see me?"

A few moments later, the nurse provided a room number, and everyone who had gathered, after hearing why the young man was there, stepped aside, allowing him to pass through the doors which would ultimately lead to his peace of mind. 

Gingerly pulling the the curtain aside, the man peered into the room:

    "I wanted to introduce myself.", he began.

Before he could, though, an elated voice burst forth:

    "It's you!", she exclaimed.

Approaching her bedside, he bent towards her.  Hugs, tears, exchanges of gratitude, relief, and almost  disbelief that they had been reunited.

The woman's brother watched in wonder.

        "She kept insisting that an angel with a red beard had come to her aid, but I thought,             maybe she had imagined it!"

The man, no longer a stranger, pulled up a chair as a conversation between the woman and her "angel" ensued.  She remembered very little about the accident.  Explaining that most of her family lived out of town, she mentioned her grandson - who used to live here, but moved away after college:

        "In fact, he is probably around your age!", she offered,

....then revealed his name.

    "No way!", bellowed her visitor, "He and I have known each other since middle school              and were good friends in those days!"

This could be the perfect "happily-ever-after" ending to this story...if only it were actually the end!

Early the next morning, reflecting on the previous day's events, he texted me:

    "Man! I did not sleep well last night.  There's a certain peace I have that I was able to find         her, but I kept thinking about what I saw and her cries for help and it was really hard....I've      never been that scared or shaky.  No one else came to help either and I'm so                        bothered by that.  Everyone was just on the sidewalk taking pictures.  No one helped pry      her door open, no one brought water or anything.  Everyone just wanted to watch."

Validating his actions, I countered:

    "The other people were merely bystanders...YOU wanted to help.  Everyone there had a            choice.  You chose to make a difference in someone's life.  You may have,                                 singlehandedly, altered the course of her existence by staying calm, thinking         rationally, and choosing to act."

Believing that this was an apt conclusion to our conversation, we each resumed our agendas for the day.

Hours later, my phone chimed.

    "You're never going to believe this!", he began, "I got a call and my screen said, 'Patty             From the Accident' -  because that's how I listed her in my contacts to remember who she      was.  She said:"

        "Did you, by any chance, find our lady from the accident?" 

    "Yes, I actually did!"

        "Did you, by any chance, bring her pink roses?"

    "I sure did!'

        "You're probably wondering how I found out...".

    "How did you hear?", the man inquired.

        "My daughter is a triage nurse at the hospital. As soon as she got off work, she called            me saying that she just had to tell me the most incredible story about a woman who            was brought in as a result of an automoblie accident.  She described how a young man,         carrying pink flowers and saying he had assisted her at the scene, had located her,                and came to make sure she was okay.  I knew she was talking about you!"

Thinking about the remote odds of this nurse working at the same hospital where the driver of that car was admitted, the fact that she was on duty at the time, and the improbable likelihood of her being Patty's daughter, reinforced my certainty that there is no such thing as coincidence.  

Each person involved in this saga is tied together in a way that none of them will ever forget - even if their paths never cross again.  They share a story of near-tragedy, kindness, determination, selflessness, quick thinking, and a constant reminder that, although our world is such an expansive realm, it shrinks to the size of someone's heart when we allow ourselves to believe that there is goodness in those around us, that the connections we make with one another are most definitely not random, and that we are placed in situations we are meant to experience.

Yes - this tale does have a long "cast of characters":

* The woman and her daughter in the Sequoia

* The driver of the sedan

* The paramedics

* The police officers

* "Patty"

* The bystanders

* The hospital staff who took my calls

* The people at the police precincts who answered my questions

* The EMT dispatchers who tried to help me locate the driver

* "Patty's" daughter

And....

*  My Son - the extraordinary man who made the choice to make a difference 

    

Me, with Corey when he was 2 years old

© Cre8ive Writes, LLC  2023