JSMDMD

Sunday night I was coming back to Valencia after having dinner with a friend. It was raining hard in the Newhall Pass, so I was going about 50 in the number 2 lane of the 5N.
Coming into Valencia, about 200 feet ahead of me, I saw a car lose control in the number 1 lane and start spinning. An SUV hit him, then another car hit the SUV. Then two more cars hit each other in front of me.
I hit my brakes, my anti-locks kicked in, and it appeared that I was going to be fine, all that training from the HPDE classes finally paying off.
Next thing I know, I see headlights shining into my passenger window, then boom, I am hit on my passenger side by a truck spinning out of control.
I stopped about 100 feet past the impact point, now in the number 1 lane.
I sat in my car for about 30 seconds, hoping that I wasn't going to get rear ended by another vehicle.
The 1 and 2 lanes were blocked by the 6 cars in the accident, so I got out of my car to see if everyone in the other cars were OK. Besides being shaken up as would be expected, everyone was fine. A very nice young man stopped and said that he had called 911, and the CHP and tow trucks were on the way.
By then I realized that the truck that had hit me was long gone.
Less than 10 minutes later, 2 flatbed tow trucks arrived, parked in the number 2 lane, next to my car. We all then waited for the CHP to arrive.
The freeway traffic was now moving slowly past us in the number 3 and 4 lanes.
I, of course, am now looking at the damage to my 2005 911S. The car was drivable, but the entire passenger side was wiped out. Door smashed in, quarter panels crumpled. Needless to say, I was feeling very sorry for myself by then.
About 10 minutes later, and about 20 minutes after the accident had occurred, I was standing in front of my car talking to the man who had stopped to help. I hear this screeching noise, look up and see a small pickup truck out of control, sliding sideways drivers side first, heading towards us and the tow trucks.
The pickup drivers side window hit the back end of the tow truck, with a sound I could only compare to an explosion. Parts of the truck were flying everywhere.
The man I was speaking to and I ran over to the truck. The entire drivers side was collapsed, so I went over to the passenger side, opened up the door and found the driver slumped on the passenger seat, the dashboard crushed against his pelvis. He had a major head wound which I don't wish to describe.
The other man called 911 again to request an ambulance ASAP, so it fell upon me to maintain the victims airway and control the bleeding. He was breathing, but not conscious. I found myself talking to him, for what now appeared to be more for my benefit than his. So I am standing in the rain, my foot on the doorsill of the truck with his head on my leg, holding his neck trying to maintain his airway with one hand, and trying to slow the bleeding with the other.
While this was going on, not one other person came over to help. Not the tow truck drivers, not the other people in the accident, not another passerby. Not one.
What seemed to be an eternity later, but what was probably only about 5 minutes, the CHP arrived. They had an emergency kit and gave me some gauze to use to help stop the bleeding.
Less than a minute later, another Paramedic ambulance crew arrived, placed a neck collar on, and started to administer oxygen to him.
A minute later, and more CHP and the Fire Dept. arrived. Within 3 minutes, the victim was out of the car and on a stretcher, and I was able to step aside and watch.
One of the CHP officers then asked me to drive off to the next off ramp and wait till they came to take their reports.
About an hour later, all of the reports were taken and I went home, cleaned up, and tried to go to sleep.
Yesterday, I went to the local hospital to find out what had happened to the victim, but was unable to learn anything because of the privacy laws now in place.
This morning I read the headline in our local paper that described how the 25 year old man in the pickup truck had died of his injuries.

A few things I have taken away from this experience.

Things, though nice, really don't matter.

Apathy runs deep among many people.

Law enforcement, Fire, and EMT crews are all heroes. I don't know how they do what they do every day.

Hug your kids, spouses, and other people who matter and tell them that you love them every day.

Queram

So sad. I am glad you are ok and I was gonna say that for everybody until I read through the part about the young man who passed out.

Besides having all those heroes in our daily lives, it always helps to have people who are calm and know what the are doing in case of emergencies. As someone experienced couple of incidents like this, it is amazing how long it takes a person to leave the pink glasses and realize how fragile a human body is and how it may take a just a second to lose beloved ones.

djantlive

Wow, what a story and lesson for us all.

You did a great thing in helping the man. An airlift may have saved his life. It was his time. He probly wasn't paying attention or else he wouldn't have missed the tow trucks.

allegretto

Amen

fast1

Apathy runs deep among many people

I'll give you a different take on your observation. It all depends upon where you live. I grew up in a small town in the notheast, and everyone there went out of their way to help others. If anyone needed help, almost everyone would help because we knew we had no one else to rely on but ourselves. In cities there are so many professional organizations nearby that people assume that the pros will help, so why should they. I saw a TV clip in which they staged a mock abduction of an eight year old girl in some big city. People just walked by without even giving a glance. Not one person helped.

Eggplant Cab

Having been part of something similar, I can tell you it won't be easy to forget. But realize that you did what you could and should be proud of it. And you took a risk trying to save the man without protection from his blood. I hate to tell you this now but you may want to wait 3 and 6mths and go for a HIV check. This is not medical advice but just a precaution since the chances of infection are zero.
I had a similar incident 8 years back trying to resuscitate a guy who was knocked down by a car in the rain. I was trying to ascertain his air passageway and I had cut my hand trying to get to him and exposed myself to his blood while trying to perform CPR. He didn't make it and I had flu-like symptoms the next few days. Couldn't confirm if he was HIV positive so I took all the precautions necessary (I have a wife and kid). Fortunately it was really just the flu but it was a long year for me. And yes, I would do it all over again, just that I have my first aid kit in the car.
I don't like driving in the rain in socal. Somehow many people either drive too fast or too slow and accidents have a great risk for compounding because of it.

1AS

Doctors driving Porsches may be the unnofficial CPR (cardio/pulmonary resuscutation) teams of the highways. I've conducted two pedestrian CPR events (one on a subway), and never learned the outcome of either, but both alive when carted away.
I think I realized one of my rules for life ("The world is full of as*holes, and you and I are no exception") the first day of my internship. It's pretty clear where all the apathetic folks fit into that. It's also true that even though we think we did something pretty good, within about 5 minutes, someone else is going to think we were the jerks. Doctor driving a banged-up Porsche probably made someone snicker.
Great job, JS. Are you a surgeon? Definitely not a dermatologist or psychiatrist, I'd guess. AS

texas911

I know why he hit the tow truck, happens a lot, he was proabably looking at the scene and, as you know from PDE, you go where you look.

That sucked, but at least you're OK.

Riad

That's some story. Unfortunately we can thank lawyers for people's apathy... if he would have lived he could have sued you over his injuries, unless his truck was on fire and it was life over limb. The good samaritan law doesn't always help... that's what's sad.

You are correct, cars can be fixed, people can't. Glad to hear you are OK.

allegretto

Further thoughts and this doesn't completely apply to the situation but...

Nothing pi$$es me off more than folks involved in a fender bender who refuse to move their cars to the side and obstruct traffic on a busy throughfare. This leads to more than a few secondary collisions. In the far past I was involved in law enforcement and we were instructed time and again that the first thing to do is get the darn vehicles out of the way. But the myth of leaving your vehicle in the middle of the road and thereby creating an enormous potential hazard persists with the majority of the driving public. As if no one will be able to look at the damage and road debris to determine what happened...

Edgy01

The real problem is not the clearing of vehicles off the highway but everyone in such a hurry despite an accident scene being right there. Everyone needs to slow down, particularly when visibility is compromised. I have to say that I support the European (or more accurately, the German method of dealign with accidents). NOTHING moves until the authorities arrive to access the situation and assign blame. Then comes clean up. It avoids unnecessary litigation down the road.

I'm glad to hear that your vehicle stood up well. Did the right side thorax air bag deploy?

Dan

gravedgr

Glad to hear you're okay - too bad about the other driver.

I'm not a doctor nor have I had any formal medical training, although my father was a medic during his 4-year Army stint. I have been ?lucky? enough to be witness to over a dozen accidents. Whenever I see anything happen, I'm always the first to stop and lend aid - whether on a deserted road or in the middle of heavy traffic or on a dark rainy highway.

I saw a dump truck get sideways in a corner - and take out a pickup truck coming in the opposite direction. With the doors wedged shut and his feet broken (and a large arm wound I couldn't reach), we extracted him via the passenger side window. I have pulled a teenager from a car he rolled a half-dozen times, and a woman from a nose-over-tail encounter with a ditch. I have tried to stablize a pre-teen girl in the back seat of a sedan after it was t-boned because both parents were pinned in the front of the car with broken legs.

Last year, I was waiting for a light to change and watched as an inline skater cut in front of a moving car. It was surrealistic to see the body fly over 10 feet into the air - like something from a movie. He had one leg destroyed, and a large chunk taken out of his skull just at his hairline. We maintained his airway and kept talking to him until the paramedics arrived. Didn't think twice about his blood on me.

About 10 years ago, I was the first on scene to an accident. A man had been jumpstarting his car, when a third cut through a median area an clipped one - he was caught between the two and had his legs crushed. One leg was partially attached (skin only) - the bone was completely gone, and the other leg was destroyed. His wife saw the whole thing happen from the front seat. I took my shirt off and tore it into stips to tourniquet his legs. My ex-wife was shocked when I arrived to pick her up with no shirt and covered in someone elses blood. Again, I never thought twice about it.


When I was 16, I managed to roll my father's 4x4. The frame was bent so badly, only 3 wheels would touch the ground when they flipped it back over. I was pinned in the cab until a bystander was able to get the door open. I wasn't hurt (a minor cut), but I just hope that if someday I need major medical attention, someone like me will stop and help me too.

Snoopy

Wow. So sorry to hear about this. Not too long ago, my friend and I were out to lunch and on our way back, we saw a guy laying in the middle of an intersection with his bike next to him. My friend called 911 and I got out of the car to help the guy. Another person got there right when we did and helped and several others stopped and offered to help. It's pathetic that all of those people were right there but that no one offered to help you. Re the blood -- another friend is a nurse and always carries a kit in her car with first aid stuff and gloves -- though didn't help the one time she was without her car at a bar and someone got stabbed in the back above the kidney and she had to jump in and take over.

THPorsche

Holy crap, that's quite an experience. Glad you are okay. I hope your insurance company will take care of your car very soon.

Holli82

Since I bought my car last month, I have not restocked the latex gloves that I normally keep in my car for emergencies....I will do it today.