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Probably one of the things we've all done periodically in our lives is see something happen, or be involved with something, take a quick look around, maybe see somebody do something, or react to something in a manner which we may think is wrong, and probably be way off base as to what really happened.
Recently, on a Saturday, July 22 trip to Cleveland for … guess what? … an Indians game, we were travelling west on Route 86 near the Findley Lake exit, when I attempted to pass a flatbed semi-trailer hauling two smaller box trucks. We saw the trailer had a Maine license plate, as Sally and I try to find as many different U.S. and Canadian Province licenses plates as we can on each trip, so before I attempted to pass him we recorded Maine on our tally sheet. (Didn't write the number down though.) As I got into the passing lane and was side by side with the trailer, he/she began moving into my lane and Sally nervously called my attention to the fact that he/she was going to hit us. She was correct. The trailer began to sideswipe us (yes, it was my beloved Baseball Car … better known as my "TribeMobile") and I found myself on a small bridge with guardrails to my left and embankment of which I didn't know the depth. I was able to keep my vehicle straight until he/she completed the end to front sideswipe and was ahead of me in the passing lane whereby the driver of the trailer kept going without stopping. Needless to say, we had a few things to say about his/her indifference in not stopping.
After he/she passed us, and we began to slow down, a car driven by a woman slowed a bit, then proceeded to drive on past us and we began to get angry that no one was stopping to see if we were okay or if they even cared. After all that we finally got to the right shoulder of the road, I turned on my flashers and Sally got out of the car and called 911. After traffic had passed and it was safe, I got out of the car and joined her on the shoulder between my car and the grassy area. Hearing how nervous she was in talking to the law enforcement agency, I had her give me the phone and I finished passing what information we had to the person on the other end of our call. We were given instructions and followed them until a volunteer fire department vehicle came up the Findley Lake ramp and said they were sent to see if we needed any assistance. (Small World Fun fact Number One, the woman volunteer who stopped turned out to be married to Sally's distant cousin.)
Physically, we were okay, but still shaken emotionally, with a combination of fear of what had just happened, anger because of so much indifference we seemed to encounter, apprehension of whether the car was drivable (as we hadn't even checked out the car's damage yet) or even totaled, and scared for each other that we were really okay. We were, though, very grateful and relieved that we were both unscathed by the accident. So after we calmed down some, though we were both still shaking, we finally looked at the condition of our vehicle. One might describe it as a pun … the trailer "tearing the cover off the ball" on the entire right side of the car and severely damaging the front bumper as well. Standing there, we texted our children telling them what happened and assuring them we were okay.
When the State Police arrived, the responding officer asked that Sally sit in our vehicle, and that I join him in his vehicle to fill out the accident report. When I described things as I remembered them, he let me know that the driver of the trailer probably was not even aware that he/she hit us. He explained this type of accident was more common than one would think, as the trucker is in his/her cab, and the cab being attached to the trailer, contact with the trailer is often not even felt by the driver. As far as his/her coming into my lane, the officer also explained that if I was directly parallel to his/her vehicle there could have been a blind spot and he/she might not have even been aware they I was in that lane. My anger and accusatory attitude that I'd been "hit and run" slowly began to dissipate and I saw how what I thought happened, maybe wasn't really what it seemed.
I mentioned to the officer that there was a woman who drove by us without stopping and then began to give him what information we had on the trailer that hit us. He stopped me saying he already had information on the trailer. He said a woman called who was behind the occurrence saw what happened and sped up to the trailer to get the information and report it. (Enter the woman who passed us by like she didn't care in our minds.) As she passed, she saw we were still controlling our vehicle, and figured we couldn't have gotten information on the trailer, so she went up ahead and got it. Scenario number two, which appeared to be indifference, wasn't what it seemed to be. As the officer was telling me about the woman, I took a peek at his computer screen, saw the woman's name and phone number and memorized it. When I got home later I called her and thanked her for her act, and for the second time, I felt lousy for my initial feelings.
As we continued to work on the report, my phone kept vibrating as I was getting text messages from the kids. I didn't answer, but checked to see who was texting me. The officer commented that I seemed to have lots of people who were concerned by the number of times my phone buzzed and I explained the last one was from our son, Jon who's a police officer in Richmond, Va. He then asked me if he worked for the City of Richmond, and I told him Chesterfield County. (Small World Fun Fact Number Two … he told me that his son was an officer on the Chesterfield County Police Force in Richmond, Va.) I texted Jon back and asked if he knew him and he said he did, but they don't see each other on the job often because they are in different sectors and both work the graveyard shift, but when he did see him he'd tell Lucas that his dad said, "Hi."
The report was finally completed and the officer gave us what we needed and wished us luck. We decided to skip the game and just watch it on television that night. We found a legal emergency turn around ahead and headed back to Jamestown, contacted our insurance company, then sat back, blew out a sigh of relief that we were in the comfort of our home.
In the next few days, as I got an estimate for repairs, I got some of the things from my vehicle and put them into Sally's car, as that was going to be our only vehicle for a while. I felt kind of sad for the TribeMobile, and caught myself telling Jimmy Dugan that he was wrong, that there definitely is, "Crying in Baseball."
Update report … Insurance Adjuster came three days after the accident, did an adjustment … transferred the covered amount into our bank account and The TribeMobile goes in for surgery this Tuesday. It's expected "she" will make a complete and successful recovery, and we'll all live happily ever after.
Moral of this story, though … don't think all people are callous and indifferent in all situations. There are people who just might not be aware that they did something, and people who may have looked like they couldn't be bothered, but ended up doing more to help than we may have thought. Things aren't always what they seem.