Hero of the week

I'm giving myself this gold star moment. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and through the littlest of actions. What I did wasn't especially heroic and I was at best just a good samaritan.

Saturday we had a major storm system that came through the area. It caused the baseball game at the stadium to be called  and as such I was on my home early by about 30minutes. I'm driving northbound on I-95, just crossed over the county line when I see a few feet or yards ahead of me through the rain an SUV make a sharp turn to the left through the center median and across southbound traffic. As I'm passing, I don't see the car or their headlights on the road. I keep driving not sure if I should turn around in the emergency median. I don't turn around right away and travel another six or seven miles to the next exit before I finally do. I couldn't leave it unchecked thinking what if I read about this in the paper the next day. I could have been there, it could have been avoided. How could I sleep if I knew something could have been done.

I'm going at least 75 or 80mph, my usual on I-95 but rather unsafe in the rain. It seems like I was driving forever but I finally find the car in the ditch between I-95 and the Turnpike. I couldn't believe no one else had stopped. The car didn't appear damaged. I put on my emergency flashers, turned off the car and headed down the small incline to check on the driver and any passengers. The driver was a young black woman, around my age. She was on the phone with I guess a family member since when I asked if she had called 911 she indicated she had not. I told her that I was going to call them for her. I climbed back up to my car, got in and made the call letting them know what happened and where we were. After the call I went back down, she was still on the phone, and I let her know they were on their way and asked if she was okay. She said she was fine and the only apparent damage was to the back of her car. Regardless, I was going to stay with her until someone arrived.

The fire department and ambulance arrived fairly quickly, asking if we were okay. I said I wasn't involved but just the witness and recounted my story to them. I said that I didn't think she was hurt but had called just to be sure. Another medical officer asked if the car had rolled at all and I said no. They thanked me for the call and staying with her and went to check her out. I got a call from dispatch asking to clarify the position as the department was having trouble finding us but I assured them that they were on scene. She thanked me and said that I was good to go. We hung up but I stuck around because a state trooper arrived and I figured he would want my account. I waited about ten minutes, the fire department had finished their assessment and were leaving the scene and it was maybe another five minutes before the trooper came to my car to get my side of the story and my driver's license information for his report.

Any who, the woman was fine and able to drive her vehicle out of the ditch with the trooper's assistance. After that I was good to go. I got home about 8:30p, not too late but it almost seemed forever between all the driving back and forth and for the emergency services to get there.

Now that I think about it, in all that time I spent waiting with the woman we never did exchange names. Not that it matters to me, I'm just really grateful that her accident wasn't any worse than it could have been. She was very lucky in that fact.