Turning Japanese?

04.06.05

Car Wreck

Sunday night.
David and I went out to eat for a "special date." Since we moved in together, we hardly ever go out like we used to. I got my haircut and bought make-up at Prescriptives, so they'd do my makeup for free. We put on pretty clothes and went to a semi-nice restaurant.
That's where the fun ended.
We're driving home, and one minute we're listening to Bob Marley, laughing and having a good time. Then I looked up and saw headlights that appeared to be coming towards us. We're on the expressway, and the speed limit is 65mph. He starts to slow down, because it's so dark and we couldn't tell what was going on down the road. All of a sudden there's a loud noise, squealing tires and white smoke. He slammed on his breaks and a body flew by, about 30 feet or so from his car. The car in the left lane swerved into a ditch. There's 2 mangled cars in the road and smoke everywhere. As a nurse, my first instinct is to get out and see if I can help anyone. I grabbed a blanket out of the backseat, thinking I might be able to stabilize a bleeding person or something. The first person I got to didn't look too bad, but I didn't know where he came from. He wasn't near a car or anything. When I knelt beside him, I knew immediately he was dead. Evidently, he was thrown from the car and more than likely died when he hit the ground. He was bleeding from his eyes and ears. He had no pulse and he wasn't breathing. I heard someone yell, "This guy over here is still alive!" So I went to him. He was sitting in the driver's seat, leaning over and his head was on the ground. He was bleeding from somewhere, but I couldn't tell from where. He was definitely breathing, but barely. He was gasping for air and trying to say "help." There was so much blood all over his face and mouth that I couldn't give him rescue breaths without a mouth guard or something. The only thing I could do was tilt his head back to try and protect his airway. It didn't help, because just a few seconds later her stopped breathing, and everything that was once in his body was on the ground and all over my pants and shoes.
About 10 minutes or so had passed, and we can finall hear sirens. I just stood there staring at this guy, and I knew there wasn't anything anyone could do. But I couldn't make myself walk away from him. I'll never in my life forget this guy's face. And I kept thinking that if David and I had been 2 seconds ahead of where we were, that would have been our car.
I haven't slept much since that night.
I keep having nightmares. I just can't get that guy's face out of my head.