Witnessed an Accident

Last week I witnessed an accident. Luckily there were no injuries, but it was a very strange experience I have to say.

It was lunch hour, and Chris and I were on our way to lunch at a local Lebanese place. For those familiar with Ottawa roads, we were stopped, facing North on Merivale waiting in the queue to turn left (west) onto Hunt Club.

When the traffic going the opposite way (Southbound on Merivale) began to move, an old man let his car drift across all 3 lanes of traffic. He bounced up onto the median, narrowly missing a light pole, and drove along the median for while. He then seemed to get a grip and steered off the median and pulled a U-turn.

I decided that this wasn’t right and the guy was obviously having some sort of difficulty. We made various turns and manoeuvres and got behind him as he brought his car to a stop. I got out and knocked on his window. He seemed to be in his late 70s or early 80s. I asked him if he was OK. He said yes. I said I noticed he had been having some trouble. He said no. I didn’t really know what to do at this point. So I returned to my car, and called 911 on my cell phone.

The operator was familiar with the car (someone else must have phoned earlier) and we followed the car north. It continued its strange behaviour. I began to wish I had not got back into my car. Anyway, we went through a freshly red light together, gathered some speed as we went downhill (under the railroad tracks) and went through a medium-sized intersection whose light was green.

Going at a fair clip we approached a queue of cars which was stopped at a red light (at Viewmount). As the distance between his car and the queue closed I decided that he wasn’t seeing the other cars. Sure enough, he plowed right into the back of one of the cars — travelling at speed. He never touched his brakes. The rear car slid forward into the back of a van, which slid forward into another vehicle, and so on. There were four or five vehicles affected by the accident.

Now I was really wishing that I’d taken the guy’s keys away a few intersections back. Anyway, I went over to the guy’s car and told him that he had had an accident. He was in the process of trying to get his car into reverse to back away. In the end I had to pry open his door and turn off his car myself.

He was very confused and kept repeating something like ‘I never touch’ or ‘I touch?’. To make a long story short, he basically appeared to have no memory of the incident, or even of recent events. He had to be prompted about his name. He didn’t remember what he’d eaten for breakfast that morning. He didn’t know where he was coming from or driving to. In short, he was in rough shape. Eventually an ambulance showed up (with the world’s snottiest crew who dispensed inaccurate information) and they eventually decided he needed to go to the hospital. A good idea in my view, as I think he may well have been having a stroke (‘Sir, there’s no way he’s having a stroke, he wouldn’t be walking around.’ — Geez, how do these paramedics pass their tests anyway?).

So, I had to write a two page report. The guy will most likely lose his license. If he didn’t have a stroke then it could have been that he is a diabetic or simply over/underdosed on his drugs or something. Poor guy, this one event could well change his life.

Anyway, as many have pointed out, he could have easily rammed a pedestrian rather than a line of cars; I feel OK about having done my best in this situation, but if someone had been badly hurt I would feel terrible for not having had the wits to take his keys away at the start.

In other news, I know the driver of the car that was plowed into. Small world.

return to cmh blog

2005-03-19 09:30   ...2