Miss Perception

I witnessed an accident on the highway this morning. Here is what happened:

I was driving on a four lane highway with maybe three or four vehicles (close) ahead of me and half a dozen behind. We were going down a mountain, straight and clear, probably most going close to 70 mph on their way to work (about 8:15 AM). I was on my way to get groceries, half listening to a speaker-on-CD talking about the history of jazz — ragtime, to be specific — and thinking about who-knows-what when it I realized/noticed that a tire had blown out on someone’s car ahead of me; I steered a bit to one side to avoid a big piece of airborne rubber. Simultaneous to my doing that, I “saw” — perceived, was conscious of – a maroon minivan disappearing off the side of the road. It was instantaneous. One second it was there then there was  a little puff of dust and it was … gone.

I did what I’m sorry to say I always do in such circumstances — I looked around for someone else to do what needs to be done so I won’t have to. Nobody slowed down or appeared to notice at all. I decided I better pull over in the crossover about 1/10 mile down from where it happened. Coincidentally, as I got to the crossover, there was a highway department truck getting ready to pull into traffic going the other way. I honked my horn repeatedly to try to get their attention — so I could get them to take responsibility, but they didn’t seem to notice me and pulled away. I then waited for about thirty seconds — looking in my rearview mirror — for someone see what I assumed must be an obviously wrecked vehicle. No luck. So I called 911 and reported that I had seen a maroon minivan fly off the highway and told them the location. While I was on the phone to 911, the highway truck pulled up behind me. They had circled around, having heard my honking after all. With both 911 and the highway men (two of them) having been told, I started to leave, but then thought maybe I could be of some use and decided to walk back to the scene. The highway truck guys were (again) driving to the crossover and looping back (which is how you have to do it with a four lane highway).

I arrived at the place where I had seen the maroon minivan veer off the road. There I found some freshly dug up dirt. Beyond that was a strip of dense underbrush intermixed with trees, then an open field beyond. And no sign of any maroon minivan. I looked as far as I could see into the field; no minivan. How far could it have gone? The highway guys had pulled up and were approaching. I was about to panic. Had I imagined the whole thing? I walked closer to the underbrush and then noticed something shiny. By moving to the left about twenty feet, I was able to see just the bottom half of the vehicle’s tires not ten feet in front of me. That bit of the tires is all you could see of the vehicle. It was swaddled, I mean absolutely and perfectly wrapped in underbrush. You could not have concealed it better if you had taken all day to cover it with debris.

The two highway dept. guys walk up and say, “Where is it?” I point. They look. “Where?” I point again. It is literally not more than ten feet directly in front of us. They still didn’t see it. So I walked closer and nearly put my hand on the stuff that was swaddling the hood. Then they saw it. They were as amazed as I was at its invisibility. One of them went around to the other side and reported back that there was a woman inside, conscious but with abdominal pain. No airbag, no broken windshield. She surely must have taken a hit because she didn’t so much as touch the brakes before leaving the highway.

We three stood there waiting for the emergency personnel to show up. When the first volunteer fire dept. guy got there he did exactly the same thing as the  highway guys; “Where is the wreck?” [we point] “Where?” [we point] “Where?” [we walk him the intervening ten feet and he then sees it]

While waiting, I was describing what I’d seen when it happened: maroon mini-van there one second, gone the next. The highway guys had observed a puff of dirt from where they were in the crossover ahead but didn’t see anybody go off the road. At that point I said something about how completely, amazingly covered the thing was in the underbrush; that all I could see was a dark bundle — and I asked the guy who had walked around to the other side what kind of minivan it was? He said, “It’s a forest green pickup truck.”

[It's my guess that somewhere in my field of view in the millisecond of the tire blowing out/car leaving the road there was a maroon minivan behind or in front of me. At least I hope so.]

-Julie

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