After work today, I went to the Columbus Day sale at JoAnne Fabrics. I spent about an hour gathering my goodies, standing in line and politely arguing with the sales clerk. We won’t go into that, because it will just raise my blood pressure.
Coming home, I witnessed first-hand a bad car accident right in front of me. An 85 (almost 86) year old man turned in the intersection and hit a young lady who was alone in her vehicle, doing nothing wrong. He thought he had a green light and could turn left, but actually couldn’t.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw him pull out, saw her coming, and his car clipped the front passenger corner on her car. She spun around, went up over the curb, hit a sign post (a pretty big one) and ended up on the grass in front of a hardware store a friend of mine owns. His airbags went off, which meant he couldn’t see where he was going. He also ended up going in front of the store, but a lot further than she did, and his car hopped over another curb and onto the grass. I pulled in the other driveway to the store, turned the car off and ran to his car. His door had popped open, and he was sitting there stunned. He swung his legs out, and we could see blood seeping through his pants on one knee. He pulled his pant leg up, and his kneecap had been pushed around his leg to the side. It was already very swollen. He was stunned, and wondered what had happened. He said he’d never been in an accident or gotten a ticket. He was found to be at fault, but did not get a ticket. The girl was not hurt, but her car was totaled. Had I not gone for fabric, I wouldn’t have witnessed this accident.
NOTE: The car above is not her actual car. I was not goofy enough to pull out my camera phone and snap a photo. Way too tacky!
The event shook me up. The elderly gentlemen is the same age as my father, and I worry about him driving all the time. As the child of an elderly parent, how do you determine when to take the car keys away? I dread that decision.
Someone please do it for me. I don’t want this to be my dad…
