The Horror of the Summer, 8/5/11

It's been a little crazy since my adventures to St. Louis.  I can't believe I haven't blogged about the accident we witnessed and suffered some minor car damage from back in early August.  So here it goes.  Warning: some of my descriptions will be pretty graphic.

The first weekend of August is traditionally when we take off on our annual camping trip with Traci's family.  Normally it's off to Shaver Lake in the Sierras east of Fresno.  However, this year, we headed to Lake of the Springs, which was about and hour and 20 minutes north of Sacramento (460 miles from home roughly).  So we hit the road pretty early, just after 4:00 AM. 

Over the Grapevine we go and down into the Central Valley.  Maybe a half hour after the Grapevine, we witnessed the most horrific accident any of us have ever seen, and hopefully never see again.  Let me give you a play by play as best I can.  This happened around 6:1 5AM on August 5.

Cruising along at about 60 MPH, following Traci's parents who are towing a 5th wheel (trailer), I happen to notice a white SUV (Suburban) passing us in the left lane (on a 2-lane each direction highway).  While I'm watching it after it passed us, the rear right wheel--tire on rim--rolls right off the car.  Instantly the back rotor hits the road and starts kicking up gravel and sparks right onto our car which is maybe 100 feet behind them in the neighboring lane.  That pulls the car right, slightly into our lane, freaking me out.  Then it swerves left across the lane they were just in, continues into the center median which is all dirt and dry brush and about 40-50 feet wide (we were west of Bakersfield on I-5) and then begins to come back up onto the road into the left lane where they began.  As soon it was back up on the road, headed almost straight across our side of the highway, it flips.  Not just once, but several times, with at least the first complete rotation occurring completely in the air.  Once it lands back on the pavement, it continues to rolls at least a few more times.  I estimate it probably rolled a total of 4 or 5 times in all.  Meanwhile, everything is flying out of the car.  This was part of a family from Baldwin Park headed to Napa Valley for vacation we found out later, so the back of this Suburban was packed.  Suitcases flew out, which opened sending all contents flying, at least one ice chest opened as it flew out sending everything in it flying.  This doesn't count all the pieces of gravel, which were like little fireballs from the friction of the accident as well as parts of the car flying all around that car and into our car which I was in the process of stopping to avoid running into this flying, rolling car.  During this scene, something very large and metal hits our car, which is where our damage came from on the passenger's side of the front of our car.  Eventually the SUV stops, right side up somehow amazingly, and we are in shock as we are the closest car to them.  Once we make sure the girls were ok, and they were thankfully, we told them to stay right where they were so that we could help the people in the car.

There is nothing that can prepare you for this scene if you are not an EMT, cop, etc.  When all is said and done, our car is within 150 feet probably of where the other car came to a rest.  I-5 is now completely shut down going north since they are in the middle of the two lanes on our side of the 5.  Debris is covering from the freeway from several feet behind our car to probably over 100 feet ahead of where the car stopped rolling, from gutter to center median: clothes, ice, drinks, car parts, shattered glass...you name it, it was on the freeway.  Fortunately, the one thing that did not fly out of the car and onto the freeway was bodies.  All 7 people in the car had seat belts on.  As we (Traci and I) approach the car, it was like something straight out of the movies or tv (like ER).  Everybody in the car is in shock and has blood running down some part of them except for a 5 year old in the middle of the back (3rd) row.  The driver's head, an older gentleman, is cut and has blood running down his head and face.  The passenger next to him, his sister we found out, was dead and had a major gash in her forehead.  This went from the middle of her forehead just above the point between her eyes, to past her right eye by a good inch, and was wide open, at least an inch and a half, so that when I saw it, I was looking at her scull.  In hindsight it was obvious that she was dead.  This huge wide open gash on her forehead did not have blood flowing from it, meaning the heart was not beating.In the middle row of seats the people were able to get out on their own, but had blood all over them.  The back row had the other most disturbing injuries to a person.  The little boy in the middle looked just fine, no blood, no cuts or scratches that we could see.  He was strapped in his booster seat.  The driver's side passenger was injured and had blood going like everybody else. The passenger on the passenger's side was in and out of consciousness.  Her shirt was saturated (so much so it was kind of shiny, you know like when you're fresh out of the pool in your bathing suit) in blood.  When she was conscious, she would just moan/cry/scream.  Her face had blood running down it as well.

The car that was behind them in their lane when this went down also got out to help and was the first to call 911.  He approached the car just as we did.  Meanwhile Traci's parents were freaking out.  As I said we were following them, but they were ahead of the accident.  When it happened, all they saw was a cloud of debris and dust behind them.  They lost sight of us and thought the worst.  Fortunately, when the dust settled, they saw that we were ok and backed up to come back to help.  They stayed with the girls in the car for the most part, although Traci's mom helped the family as well since she used to be a nurse.  There was another car that backed up to help out with the accident as well.  It was the other part of the family that was in the car that just flipped.  They were amazingly calm after seeing what had happened to their family.  They helped out where needed with their family.  They comforted the two injured girls that were crying, initially from their own injuries and then more when they realized that they were looking at their dead mother.  They also helped the other that were injured.  They seemed very appreciative when we said goodbye.

We wound up using 6 of the 8 towels we had packed on the people of the accident to help stop all the bleeding.  Traci applied pressure on a girl with a severs cut to her foot (that literally gushed when she showed it to one of the EMTs that arrived).  Traci mom helped with compressions on the dead woman once I and two other men helped lift her body out of the car and onto the ground.  Not what I had planned for vacation, that's for sure.

They wound up closing both sides of I-5 as a result of the accident.  They needed to land a helicopter to airlift the one girl in the back seat I talked about.  Let's just say it was controlled chaos.  Ultimately there were 3 or 4 cops/highway patrolmen, two fire trucks and crews, and at least two ambulances with their crews.  Once they arrived, it was amazing to see them go to work.  I learned that code black = dead, code red = severe/life-threatening injuries, code yellow = injuries, but not severe and code green = fine.

After it was all said and done and I had calmed down as much as is possible after witnessing something like that, and we had given the cops our statements and got their clearance to leave, we headed back on our way.  This was about an hour and a half after the accident occurred, so we still needed breakfast.  So we headed to IHOP and continued as best we could to our vacation.

The girls were fortunate enough to have been each given a teddy bear from one of the firemen on the scene.  It was very cute and they were very happy about that.  It was also fortunate that all they saw was the bloody driver and a the girl being carted to the helicopter.  They didn't see much if any of the accident as it happened.

I may have left out some details, but I really don't feel like trying to figure that out.  We were also very fortunate that all we had happen was some minor damage to our car.  Repairs totaled just under $3,000, but we wound up not having to pay a penny once our deductible was refunded to us.  The one thing I can really take away from this is to cherish each moment you can because you truly do not know when God will call you home.  You never plan on something like this happening, but you also never know when it will.