First On The Scene

I seem to happen on accidents a lot. It doesn’t seem to matter if I am on my way home from work, visiting my mother for the holidays, on holiday with girlfriends or simply taking the scenic route on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Those are four incidents that stick in my mine like dark blips, I learnt lessons from all of them:


Be Visible.
Returning from Wellington on a brief visit to visit my mother when I was nineteen, I’d flown into Rotorua airport to save a few dollars and mum had picked me up. I’d spent the flight rehearsing coming out to my mother, the 45 minute drive back to Tauranga seemed like the perfect time to tell her I was seeing a 20 year old personal trainer who happened to be a woman. It wasn’t to be.

We were near the Country Club on the outskirts of Te Puke, driving in convoy with several vehicles, in front of us a station wagon and in front of him a 4WD. We were all sticking fairly close to the speed limit and had just entered an 80km zone when everyone suddenly braked. There were no screams, simply the squeal of breaks and then car doors thudding.

My mother is a nurse and she ran to the front of the queue while I was left to move the car to the side of the road. It was an automatic, one I was to later to inherit – at the time I had never driven an automatic and simply put it in drive and let it inch forward, I was to scared to put my foot on the accelerator. I sat in the car and waited.

Turned out that a young Maori woman had run out on the road. Dressed entirely in black, her long back hair unbound and her face turned away from the traffic, the driver of the 4WD never had a chance to stop. The station wagon between us contained an off duty paramedic and the car behind us a GP. (why is it when these things happen there is always medical personal on hand?)

I ran to the Country Club to use their phone (before I had a cell phone) and couldn’t get anyone to come to reception – I ended up reaching over the counter and dialling, placed the call and left without seeing a soul. When everything was over and the ambulance and police had taken their statements and we were allowed to carry on, my mother shaken but calm, she told me she didn’t think the girl would make it. She rang the hospital the next morning. She didn’t.

Always Be Aware At Intersections.
Visiting Melbourne with four of my girlfriends on Australia Day weekend, we were buying pies and soft drinks at the BP by our hotel at 4 in the morning on the way home from a rave in the city when a car full of teenage boys ran a red light at speed and collected a car traveling at cross angles with the right of way. The second vehicle spun in an arc, 540 degrees before hitting the traffic lights and coming to a rest.

Before he even stopped I was thumping on the plate glass of the service station window and screaming for them to call an ambulance before taking off across the car park separating us to see if I could help. I vividly recall seeing his cap in the middle of the intersection and the air-conditioning fluid dripping on the asphalt. Malcolm was in the car, white as a sheet, shaking like a leaf and asked me to call his sister and tell her what happened. I watched carefully as the young guys in the other car tried to switch seats so another of them looked like he was driving... something almost every other witness also commented on in their statements to police.

Malcolm handed me his wallet, his phone, his keys and I placed them in his hat, waiting with him, holding his hand, comforting him and joking with him, assuring him that he was going to be okay. He was confiding in my that he couldn’t feel his legs, they were tingly, he was scared. He was the same age as my little brother and I wanted to hug him but was scared I would cause him an injury.

When the ambulance staff got him onto a stretcher to transport him to the hospital literally 50m down the road I handed his belongings to the police. They anxiously enquired if I was related or his girlfriend and when I said no, they rudely snatched his belongings from me as though I was trying to leave with them, not hand them over.

The next day I ventured into the hospital to check on him, but with only a first name I never found out if he was okay. I like to think he walked out in one piece.

Never Undertake. Also, The Victim isn’t always A Victim.
Leaving work in North Ryde, NSW late one summer evening, I decided to catch the bus to the train station and catch the train home, rather than sit on a hot crowded bus all the way. We trundled off towards the station, following a motorcycle and a taxi around a left turn onto a straight stretch of road.

As we approached a left turn into an industrial area, I was startled to see the motorcycle accelerate and dip to the left, attempting to ‘undertake’ the taxi in front of him. Neglecting to notice the taxi had indicated and was turning left... directly into the path of the motorcycle who A) should never have been where he was and B) was completely in the Taxi’s blind spot.

The motorcycle connected with the front of the taxi and cart wheeled across the width of the road, narrowly missing a power pole. It was at this point the rider dropped to the ground on the grass verge, while the bike continued to cartwheel a few more metres, coming to rest against a bus shelter.

I had again raced to the scene the moment the bus pulled up short, I was dialling 000 as I ran and swiftly reported that the motorcyclist was conscious but in pain. I prevented the bystanders from removing his helmet in case of spinal injury. He wouldn’t stay still and twisted and turned, I was growing increasingly annoyed and worried about him in equal parts. He handed me his mobile and said he had no credit, but would I call his father for him on mine?

I called his dad and let him know what had happened. I assured him I would ask the ambulance staff to call him when they decided which hospital he was going to. I returned the motorcyclists mobile phone and he started going on about his bike. He’d only gotten it that day and had wanted to see what it could do. He didn’t tell me this with regret for his actions, or causing the accident, but in disgust that the taxi had cut him off.

In disgust I moved away to comfort the middle aged Indian taxi driver, who was sitting on the ground on the opposite side of the cab from the scene. He was in shock, no one had bothered to see if he was okay. He was petrified to look as he thought the guy was dead.

I crouched in front of him and made him look me in the eye. I reassured him that the motorcyclist was indeed alive, breathing, in fact he was conscious and talking. The taxi driver visibly relaxed. I asked him what he thought happened and he just kept repeating that he had indicated and he hadn’t seen the motorcyclist.

I was glad to be able to confirm his story when police arrived.

Sometimes Someone is Looking Out For You.
It was a sunny summers afternoon and I was heading home from the gypsy fair in a round about way. Heading towards River Road in Hamilton I stopped at a Give Way sign to allow a car travelling along the road I was about to turn into right of way. When that car turned left into the street I was exiting I muttered a few expletives about incompetent drivers not indicating and how I could’ve gone earlier if I’d known he was turning.

I continued on my journey one short block before taking another left onto River Road. Suddenly there was a high pitched whine of a motorbike and a squeal of tyres. I braked instinctively as a motorbike careened in front of my from a street to my left. Ploughing through the air centimetres from my bonnet before plunging through the wooden fence of a property bordering the road coming to a stop with the engine of the bike cutting out suddenly and again silence only cut by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers song blasting from my stereo speakers.

I pulled up onto the kerb, jumping the gutter. I was out of my car door and halfway across the road before I suddenly realised I’d left my keys in the ignition. I returned to the car, grabbed my bag and keys and planted my phone to my ear calling 111 as I scrambled to the edge of the property.

It occurred to me at that moment that had the car earlier indicated, I would have been in the path of the motorcycle.

Screeching to a halt, I gazed down onto the front lawn of a house... The motorbike was closest to the house, the man on his back, the broken section of the fence upside down covering his body, his feet sticking out from beneath it on still encased in his boot and the other covered only with a sock. The boot near me on the foot path.

I nearly vomited on the spot. I now know what the saying ‘He was as still as death’ means.

Fit young men rushed down to the body and lifted the piece of fencing, discarding it to one side. I think I knew at that instant, but again, there were two doctors on the scene and a nurse and they began to work on him. I tore my eyes away from the sight as they removed his helmet and began CPR, it seemed to me that the pale flopping of his arms and neck showed how lifeless he was.

I walked down the street and stopped outside the house next door, looking up and seeing a young mother with a boy around 9 or 10 years of age sitting in a car with teas rolling down their faces. I approached and started talking to them, the mother asking in a low whisper if I thought he would make it. Reading in my eyes the answer, I simply said that he was receiving medical attention. She nodded, and I advised her to ask the police for information on counseling services for her son.

A friend had driven past moments after the crash and stopped to comfort me, holding me as I finally broke and bawled like a small child. I sat on the footpath and leant on the fence out of the sun and accepted a drink from the wife of one of the doctors who lived in a nearby house.

I didn’t realise they actually drape a sheet over a body – I’m not sure what I expected, but that seemed like something out of a movie or a crime television show. I gave my details to a police officer and she told me to go somewhere there was people, and to call Victim Support if I needed to.

The next 48 hours were a blur, I went to a friends for the afternoon and then another friends for dinner. We watch Pretty Woman and I awoke the next day, a Sunday, and went to work. A phone call halfway through the day bought it all back. The police needed me to make a statement. I went to the station after work and told them everything I remembered.

There was something like 14 deaths on the road that weekend, for some reason this man was not included.

Still now I shudder to hear a motorbike accelerate if I can’t see it, they believe he turned a corner at speed and encountered a queue of traffic he didn’t expect. He swerved to avoid it and pulled back on the accelerator instead of braking. He’d purchased the bike that day and left behind a fiancé and two children.