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Unlikely "Heros"
So yesterday, me and my co-workers were out on 75, southbound lanes. We had just finished weed whacking the guardrail underneath the overpass when our morning took an eventful turn.
My coworker A turned and gasped. I looked over to the Northbound lanes and witnessed something I never thought I would ever witness first hand: A black pick-up spiraling and flipping into one of our 15 ft signs. In all honesty, all I saw was a black blur taking out the sign. But we all knew what it was. We kind of sat there, frozen for a few seconds, letting what we just saw sink in. I then told our supervisor to call 911 and me and A took off across four lanes of traffic as fast as traffic would allow. We ran down into a VERY deep ditch, (so deep as we could hardly see traffic.) and saw the most wreckage I have ever seen in my life. The car ended up sideways in a small creek just at the bottom of the overpass hill. We ran down to the truck to look through the passenger side windows, only to fall into a small drop off that led in to the creek. We step back up and peek over the side. A little boy looks up at us from his car seat, hanging sideways but thankfully still attached to the seat. He cried a little and we told him it was going to be ok. I looked into the drivers seat and a woman laid there, buried underneath various things that had been flung around in the cab. We called down to her, but she didn't make any response. I did notice that the papers laying on her head were moving, which told me she was, thankfully, breathing. We tried to figure out a way to get into the cab, first to turn the (oddlly enough) still running engine off and second to get the little boy out. I was planning on just dropping down through the passenger side window when A said the back window was busted out. So, I climbed in through the window, sitting on the driver's side, passenger window. the little boy was eye level with me, so I grabbed his hand and told him everything was going to be ok. The look in his eyes was unbearable, but he was ok, that's all that mattered. I squeezed in between the driver's seat the side of the truck and turned the engine off, careful not to disturb the boy's mother. Two other motorists, who happen to have been driving beside the woman when the crash happened came up to the truck. I unlatched the little boy and lifted him up to the man, who took him out through the same passenger side window I first saw him through. I then went to work trying to uncover the mother. She started moving, so I started talking to her. I asked her if she was hurt anywhere besides her head (which connected with the window, evidence of the spider crack and the blood on both her and the window). She didn't really respone, but I kept at it, trying to bring her out the shock at least. I noticed another car seat in the car, empty and asked her if another child had been in the car. She just started counting up and I prayed that there hadn't been. I stared untangling her from a pair of jumper cables that had gotten around her when the EMTs showed up. I crawled out to a convoy of state patrols, fire trucks and ambulances. As I went to stand over with the other witnesses and my coworkers, I noticed the woman's blood all over my hands and a few spots on my jeans. It took them 30 minutes and the jaws of life to get the woman out, mostly by just cutting the top of the truck off. She was fully concious by this time. The Patrol took statements from both the witnesses and took the little boy and his mom to the hospital. We stayed and helped with the clean up. We found out as the ambulance was leaving that there was not another child in the car, thankfully. The witnesses who were beside her told us and the patrol that she slowly just started veering off the side of the road until she hit the guardrail head on, thus causing her to flip into the sign and finally come to rest in the ditch. The guardrail was what saved her life. It took most of the force and slowed her down. If she would have missed it, she would have hit either the very large steel I-beams of the sign head on, causing the car to either split in half or slam into the creek, which would have flipped the car onto it's roof onto the hill of the overpass, which would have definetely killed her and her son. Or she would have drove straight into the creek or the tree and would have injured herself far worse than just a scratch on her head.
Damage report: One completely wrecked truck, one 15 ft sign taken out, one 20ft I-beam taken out and 30ft of guardrail taken out and flattened. We haven't heard anything about how the mom and the little boy are doing, but according to the news at noon yesterday, they were both doing fine.
I never expected to see anything like that while working. Sure we're on the highway all day, but we never expect to be the first ones on the scene, let alone watch it as it happens right in front of us. What really freaked us out was we had just whacked that very guardrail not even a week before that. We kept thinking, if we hadn't done that side first, we could have been a part of that, maybe even have been the only fatalities in it. Today, our big boss announced that we would recieve certificates from both the state and the state highway patrol. It feels as if everyone is blowing out of porportion what we did. We helped out, called for help and did all we could, but I wouldn't really consider us heros as everyone keeps calling us. Maybe I'm just being humble, but what we did was our job. Not just as highway workers, but as human beings. I feel it's unfair that we're being congratulated and praised when others who do the samething everyday hardly, if ever, get regconized. But I do thank the Goddess that we were there, because if all of us hadn't seen what happened, I don't think anyone would have found them. You could not see the wreckage from the highway, the ditch was so deep. People round here drive by missing signs and busted guardrail all the time and never think twice about it. I'm just glad that both of them are ok and can return to their families safe and sound.
My coworker A turned and gasped. I looked over to the Northbound lanes and witnessed something I never thought I would ever witness first hand: A black pick-up spiraling and flipping into one of our 15 ft signs. In all honesty, all I saw was a black blur taking out the sign. But we all knew what it was. We kind of sat there, frozen for a few seconds, letting what we just saw sink in. I then told our supervisor to call 911 and me and A took off across four lanes of traffic as fast as traffic would allow. We ran down into a VERY deep ditch, (so deep as we could hardly see traffic.) and saw the most wreckage I have ever seen in my life. The car ended up sideways in a small creek just at the bottom of the overpass hill. We ran down to the truck to look through the passenger side windows, only to fall into a small drop off that led in to the creek. We step back up and peek over the side. A little boy looks up at us from his car seat, hanging sideways but thankfully still attached to the seat. He cried a little and we told him it was going to be ok. I looked into the drivers seat and a woman laid there, buried underneath various things that had been flung around in the cab. We called down to her, but she didn't make any response. I did notice that the papers laying on her head were moving, which told me she was, thankfully, breathing. We tried to figure out a way to get into the cab, first to turn the (oddlly enough) still running engine off and second to get the little boy out. I was planning on just dropping down through the passenger side window when A said the back window was busted out. So, I climbed in through the window, sitting on the driver's side, passenger window. the little boy was eye level with me, so I grabbed his hand and told him everything was going to be ok. The look in his eyes was unbearable, but he was ok, that's all that mattered. I squeezed in between the driver's seat the side of the truck and turned the engine off, careful not to disturb the boy's mother. Two other motorists, who happen to have been driving beside the woman when the crash happened came up to the truck. I unlatched the little boy and lifted him up to the man, who took him out through the same passenger side window I first saw him through. I then went to work trying to uncover the mother. She started moving, so I started talking to her. I asked her if she was hurt anywhere besides her head (which connected with the window, evidence of the spider crack and the blood on both her and the window). She didn't really respone, but I kept at it, trying to bring her out the shock at least. I noticed another car seat in the car, empty and asked her if another child had been in the car. She just started counting up and I prayed that there hadn't been. I stared untangling her from a pair of jumper cables that had gotten around her when the EMTs showed up. I crawled out to a convoy of state patrols, fire trucks and ambulances. As I went to stand over with the other witnesses and my coworkers, I noticed the woman's blood all over my hands and a few spots on my jeans. It took them 30 minutes and the jaws of life to get the woman out, mostly by just cutting the top of the truck off. She was fully concious by this time. The Patrol took statements from both the witnesses and took the little boy and his mom to the hospital. We stayed and helped with the clean up. We found out as the ambulance was leaving that there was not another child in the car, thankfully. The witnesses who were beside her told us and the patrol that she slowly just started veering off the side of the road until she hit the guardrail head on, thus causing her to flip into the sign and finally come to rest in the ditch. The guardrail was what saved her life. It took most of the force and slowed her down. If she would have missed it, she would have hit either the very large steel I-beams of the sign head on, causing the car to either split in half or slam into the creek, which would have flipped the car onto it's roof onto the hill of the overpass, which would have definetely killed her and her son. Or she would have drove straight into the creek or the tree and would have injured herself far worse than just a scratch on her head.
Damage report: One completely wrecked truck, one 15 ft sign taken out, one 20ft I-beam taken out and 30ft of guardrail taken out and flattened. We haven't heard anything about how the mom and the little boy are doing, but according to the news at noon yesterday, they were both doing fine.
I never expected to see anything like that while working. Sure we're on the highway all day, but we never expect to be the first ones on the scene, let alone watch it as it happens right in front of us. What really freaked us out was we had just whacked that very guardrail not even a week before that. We kept thinking, if we hadn't done that side first, we could have been a part of that, maybe even have been the only fatalities in it. Today, our big boss announced that we would recieve certificates from both the state and the state highway patrol. It feels as if everyone is blowing out of porportion what we did. We helped out, called for help and did all we could, but I wouldn't really consider us heros as everyone keeps calling us. Maybe I'm just being humble, but what we did was our job. Not just as highway workers, but as human beings. I feel it's unfair that we're being congratulated and praised when others who do the samething everyday hardly, if ever, get regconized. But I do thank the Goddess that we were there, because if all of us hadn't seen what happened, I don't think anyone would have found them. You could not see the wreckage from the highway, the ditch was so deep. People round here drive by missing signs and busted guardrail all the time and never think twice about it. I'm just glad that both of them are ok and can return to their families safe and sound.
We need people like you. And if you think you'd be interested, consider going into fire-fighting, paramedical, emergency-coordination, or other emergency-response type work. 
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