How Fragile Life Is
For some reason I cannot yet comprehend, an experience I had back in June keeps creeping into my mind. It’s little things, really, that reawaken the memories: certain facial features on complete strangers; a certain make/model of a car; crossing railroad tracks; and white big-rig trucks to name a few. I hope that by writing this entry I’ll be able to let go of some of what is clearly haunting me and perhaps reach a greater understanding as to why God put me in that place at that time.
On June 29th (Scott’s and my four-year anniversary, to be exact), we were in Arlington for a wedding shower in celebration of Robby and Elizabeth’s upcoming nuptials. Robby wanted us (Mom, Dad, Scotty, and me) to see the place they’d chosen for the event, so we ventured to Howell Family Farms with Elizabeth and her mom, aunt, and cousin. Robby and Elizabeth had also scheduled an appointment with the man who ended up deejaying their wedding for this time so he could get a feel for the venue as well. All was going well – the place was lovely, the meeting with the deejay was going smoothly, and the only concern any of us had was the unguarded railroad crossing at the private entrance to the farm. The only marking was a small white sign that said “railroad crossing” right as you reached the tracks; there were no lights or crossing bars that alerted you to an oncoming train. (Those items are not required at private crossings.) We knew that there had been some terrible accidents right there in the past; in fact, the original owner of the farms was killed in a train accident at that crossing years and years ago. The farm had recently reopened when we were there after a messy accident involving two trains (no fatalities) occurred right at the entrance to the venue about a year ago, trapping hundreds of people who were attending an event at the time. We were at peace with having the wedding there, though, because Robby and Elizabeth were required to hire two police officers for the duration of the event to man the crossing and keep anyone from getting hit by a train.
It’s important to note that I’ve always had a deep respect (read: slight fear) of train tracks. I enjoy riding on trains, but the tracks themselves freak me out. I do not like driving over railroad tracks, and I won’t walk on or near them unless it’s absolutely necessary. I do like watching trains pass, though, and love to count the cars (and see if I can figure out what’s inside of them when possible). On this particular day, I’d enjoyed watching two trains pass while we were hanging around the farm. One was an Amtrak train, and the other was some freight train headed, I am sure, in to the stockyards in Fort Worth. While standing in the front room of the cottage with my mom and someone else (at this point, I no longer remember), I remember saying, “Here comes another Amtrak train,” as I could see it approaching through the window. I will be forever grateful that the entrance to the farms was blocked by the corner of the house (windows on each side, but none in the corner) because as I watched the train, I heard a loud “BANG!” and looked at my mom. At almost the same time, we both said, “That train just hit something,” and ran to the door. As we ran, we could see what turned out to be part of the cab of a big rig truck rolling down the embankment along with some construction barrels that happened to be near the entrance. I fumbled for my phone, trying to stay calm as I dialed 9-1-1 and told the operator that I’d just witnessed an Amtrak train hit a vehicle at a private railroad crossing. As I ran toward the scene of the accident, the operator asked me the usual questions: was anyone in the truck? (yes); how many people? (I don’t know); was the person injured (I don’t know yet… I haven’t found him or her); where are you? (Howell Family Farms); what’s the address? (I don’t know…hang on). My brother, also on the phone with 9-1-1, started shouting for the address. The event planner, a young woman who was also on the phone with 9-1-1, yelled it out, and we both repeated it to our dispatchers. About this time, I came over a hill and saw the man who was driving the truck. He had been thrown about 150 feet when the cab was hit, and he had landed in an unnatural position in the grass and (thankfully) under some trees. I say thankfully because the trees ended up blocking him from the obnoxious television crews who began circling in helicopters not long after the accident. It continues to disgust me that several different television helicopters arrived on the scene before LifeFlight arrived. What kind of sick world is it in which we live?
I’ll spare the gory details in lieu of saying that if the man had been able to survive his injuries, he had the right crew of people there to help him. Mom is a nurse who worked for quite some time in the emergency room, Elizabeth’s aunt was a paramedic for a while before finding a new career, and the first person on the scene from the other side (he’d seen the wreck from the street and pulled over to help) was an army medic. You can’t tell me that God wasn’t in control at the moment. Unfortunately, there was nothing any of them could do. The army medic stabilized the man’s head to prevent any additional injuries until the paramedics arrived, and Mom and Elizabeth’s aunt kept people away from the man as gawkers began to appear. I kept my distance so as not to see the man and stayed on the phone with the 9-1-1 operator until the first police officer arrived on the scene. I’m so grateful that Daddy is a retired police officer; he was able to talk with the officers who arrived and explain what happened. When the paramedics arrived, everyone stepped away to give them room to work and save the injured man some dignity. It was when they put the man on a gurney and pushed him toward the helicopter that I began to shake and realized that I was crying. I wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably, but I was sad. I think I was in shock, really. I’d never witnessed anything like that before, and I pray that I never will again. It was horrible. I called Scott’s mom because I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t there, someone who wasn’t seeing what I was seeing and hearing what I was hearing. She was, at that moment, my Earth angel, and she calmed me down so that I would stop shaking and crying. I stalked the news stations that night obsessively, wanting to know if the man, who had begun breathing again before the paramedics took him away, would be able to survive his injuries. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the loud “BANG!” and saw the truck rolling down the hill, then saw the man, with his thin, jawline beard, lying there in the grass. Ten days later, we learned that his family had had to make that horrible decision to remove him from life support when it was determined that he would never regain consciousness. My heart broke, especially after learning he was the father of six children and the husband to a wife who loved him dearly and was having to cope with the loss of her beloved so unexpectedly. It was at that point that I finally cried. In fact, I spent a great deal of that day crying off and on, finally dealing with all of the emotions that I’d so neatly bottled up inside myself and tried to forget.
What I can’t seem to answer is why God wanted me to witness this tragedy. What was His purpose in all of this? I have no doubt that all things happen for a reason, HIS reason, but I am struggling so much as to why, all of the sudden, I can’t seem to get this man out of my mind. Of course, then I begin to feel guilty for worrying about my part in all of this when it was another person whose life was cut short. For months, I was okay. I didn’t think about it at all. Maybe that was the problem? I have no idea. I’m not having nightmares, and I am not afraid of crossing railroad tracks any more than I was prior to the accident, but multiple times a day, the memories pop back into the forefront of my mind. I hope that by writing this down, by getting the story out of my heart and on to “paper,” I’ll be able to let it go. If you happen to read this, whoever you are, please pray for his family – that they have the strength and support to get through each day and that, with time, the loss of a beloved father, son, brother, husband, cousin, friend, etc., will ache less and less. And I ask that you pray for me, as well, that I am able to make sense of my part in this, remove the guilt from thinking so much about myself in all of this, and put the accident behind me. Thank you.