The Crash

I feel like I should do the right thing and put a small “trigger warning” on this one. Some co workers and I were early on the scene of a fatal car crash a few years back, and this essay is kind of my processing of the whole thing. It could bother someone with trauma from a car crash. I’ll shoot for something a bit more on the lighter side next week.

As always, thanks for reading! I really appreciate it.

B

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“School administrators and security, we have a serious car accident near the school. Possible 10-54.” The Voice gave us the exact location and I stood there waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I realized quickly that everyone was looking at me thinking the same thing. Two members of our security team, both former city police officers, appeared in the office, told me to get in their car, and off we went. 

We tore out of the school parking lot, the officer driving his mid-size SUV as if it were his old police cruiser. I sat in the back seat getting tossed from side to side every time we took a corner. Where was the seatbelt in this thing? I worried that we’d be a second crash on the way, but the two officers were quite calm, in their element, so I tried to play that role as well.

I remember thinking that the whole situation should be louder, more chaotic. On TV and in the movies, when a serious car accident takes place, there is a lot of yelling and usually a few people running from somewhere to somewhere else. There should have been a fire chief barking orders and some passersby speaking to investigators who held tiny little notepads and pencils. There should have been the hum of traffic in the background, and a random person should have run up to me and given me a menial task that ultimately helps the situation and notes that it was a good thing the principal showed up to do that task. 

None of that. Other than the idling of the fire truck and ambulance engines, there were very few other sounds. As I approached the scene of the car crash one of the security guards, after assessing the state of the vehicle, said to me, “You may want to hang back, Dr. McCoy. I’m not sure how bad this is going to be.”  I should have listened, and I didn’t. 

In reality, I shouldn’t have been there to begin with. I had just finished a meeting and was standing in the main office at school, waiting for the end of the day bell to ring. As any good educator knows, the last ten minutes of the day can be a cakewalk or hell on earth. There isn’t usually much in between. I leaned against my door frame and covered the last few items of business for the day with my administrative assistant. That’s when the walkie talkie ruined everything. 

“Guys, what’s a 10-54? Is that a bad thing?” I asked from the back of the SUV. I asked because deep down, somewhere, I hoped that the answer was something simple. Maybe a 10-54 meant that the car was only slightly damaged, or that everyone was ok and no cause for alarm. It’s interesting because I’m not normally the hopeful or optimistic type, but up until that point, I had also never been speeding down two lane, shoulderless roads on my way to a serious car accident with two former police officers. 

They looked at each other. “It’s not good, Dr. McCoy. It means that someone could be in pretty bad shape,” one offered. 

“Like requiring an ambulance?” I don’t know why I asked that, but I remember asking it. 

“There’s a good chance that one or more people didn’t make it.” The other officer finally told me. 

I looked at my watch, knew I wouldn’t be home in time to get my own kids off the bus that day. In the moment, I reflected on how kids can go from obligatory bus riders to driving themselves to school to crashing their cars and horrifying their parents. Why the hell do we allow kids to drive cars, I thought. Why do we make cars that go so fast? I remembered my own experiences in questionable driving situations. The first time I was in a car going over 100 miles per hour, the near miss of a head on collision on a two lane road when I was trying to pass someone, the death of several classmates in high school after a drunk driving crash. 

Just before arriving on the scene, I couldn’t help but think that I shouldn’t be here, that this sort of situation is for the adults and those in charge to handle, not me. I’m hardly enough of an adult or in charge to be the school representative on a possibly fatal car accident. I wanted to go back to school and yuck it up with kids on their way to the bus, or speak with a teacher about their last hour of the day, or talk with a football coach about the game this week. 

That’s what I wanted to do, but this is where I found myself that day. 

We arrived, saw the tire tracks where the car left the road, and where it came to rest after multiple flips. As we approached, I was given the suggestion to stay back, and I didn’t. We got closer to the vehicle and found paramedics arriving just as we did. They began CPR, but it was hardly necessary. Still they persisted. I turned and began walking away when I heard a voice telling someone that there was another student who was walking around. The voice sounded as if it were underwater. Whoever the voice was talking to commanded some sort of respect, as the voice referred to its audience as “sir.” I looked around and noticed a firefighter staring at me, waiting for a response. Had he been talking to me? Was I “sir?” 

“I’m sorry, say that again?” I responded.

“There’s another kid, and he’s pacing around over there.” He dropped the sir the second time, and I was thankful. I suppose wearing a shirt and tie at a traffic accident indicates that I had some role, not that I was a high school assistant principal caught up in a whirlwind.

I found the student, pacing, in shock, mumbling, crying. I put my hand on his back while he walked and spat incoherent nonsense about the conversation he and the other student were having just before the crash, how a dog ran out in front of him and he swerved to miss it, about how he was so sorry. He was an older high school student, a junior or senior, but his face showed the fear and sorrow of a little boy. I wanted to hug him. 

I asked him his name. He grabbed my arm and asked if the other student was going to be ok. I told him that the paramedics were working on the other student and that I hadn’t been over to see. I don’t know why I lied to him, I guess the truth seemed too cruel. He asked me to go check. I told him I would. 

On the walk away from the boy to where the car came to a halt, maybe 20 yards, I allowed myself a glimmer of hope that my first assessment was wrong and that the determination of the firefighters and paramedics could have won out and saved the student. I arrived just in time to see them put the student on a stretcher while continuing chest compressions. They were loaded into an ambulance and taken away. 

I turned around to walk back to the other student, and as I did, he was taken away in a second ambulance. For a minute, everything was really quiet, like it presumably had been before the crash. Somewhere, a bird chirped. Crash investigators arrived on the scene and demanded all non essential people to leave the area. I was less than non essential, so I started walking back to the mid-size SUV from whence I came. I waited for my two friends from security to take me back to school. 

When we got back to school, I was annoyed at how normal everyone was acting. The phones were still ringing, people were still making copies, I heard laughing. How on earth were people laughing? What could ever be funny again? 

I returned to my office and began collecting my things. I was in no mood to talk to anyone, no mood to rehash what I just saw. A couple people came by to ask how the kids from the crash were. “Not great,” I said without looking up, as I loaded my backpack and shut down my office for the day. 

Just as I was leaving, another assistant principal, a friend, stopped by for one final check in. “Was it bad?” She asked. 

“It was.” 

“You need anything?” 

“Nope, thanks.” I was still moving and not making eye contact. 

“Why don’t you take tomorrow off?”

“Because then I’ll have nothing to do but think about this all day at home. I’d rather be busy.” 

I didn’t sleep that night or the next. I finally called a friend to process, and eventually got to the point that I now no longer google the student who didn’t make it, nor do I continue to read the Highway Patrol reports, nor do I drive by the scene a few times a week. 

I struggled to come to school after that because I saw the two students every time I looked at a high school aged kid. I remembered the face of a young man wearing the expression of a scared child. Still do, if I’m honest.