I called 911 yesterday . . .

I was walking my dog Flora around my parents’ neighborhood and talking on the phone with a friend.  

Suddenly, I hear a gunning engine and squealing tires.  I turn, and see a black Ford car turning wildly on top of the raised median in the middle of the street.  The car turns my way and accelerates at me.  I calculate which way to go and run up hill away from it, putting more fence between us and pulling Flora along.

The car crashes through the wooden fence and hits more fence, shattering its windshield.  The car screeches to a stop and then hurls backwards, accelerating back off the sidewalk, across the street, and up onto the median again—and taking a huge chunk of wood-and-wire fence with it, which it deposits on the median.

The car turns crazily and then slams on the acceleration again, bulleting through a different section of fence, across a dipped patch of grass.  I’m already dialing 911.  The car stops, rams backwards, destroying more fence.  I’m on the phone with the operator, spitting out the license plate number, the make and color, and the cross streets.  The car accelerates forward again at yet more fence and hits it at speed.  But it also hits pots full of concrete and gets wedged on them.  Two wooden fence posts impale the windshield.  The driver tries to keep driving but can’t. 

Three passersby come up to the driver and try to talk with her.  I stay down the street, unwilling to get closer to this lunatic and still on the phone with the 911 operator, who is telling me to breathe.  I am nice to her, and don’t explain that although I’m hyped up on adrenaline and speaking quickly, I’m neither afraid nor panicking.  It was just too weird, too fast, too dissociating to be traumatic.  What are we in, a B movie?  

The driver finally gets out of her car.  She’s white with brown hair, wearing (I tell the 911 operator), neutral gray-brown slacks and a matching patterned shirt.  She’s an adult of indeterminate age, and having trouble standing.  She is now attempting to get back into her car and not doing a great job of it.  She finally manages it, and pushes a wooden fence post out her shattered windscreen with her bare hand.  I know she’s going to attempt to start driving again, but that’s when the police cars arrive, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

It’s been not even two minutes.

The driver gets out of the car and talks to the police officers.  One asks her to walk in a straight line, but she can’t; she can barely stand.  She shows him her hands, which are covered in blood.  I can hear only part of what is said, I’m so far away.  But she says her name she doesn’t remember the accident.

The police interview another witness, a lady who lives nearby and only saw part of it, and was one of the three who came up to ask if the driver was all right.  I’m left to wait for now; I think the police aren’t sure if I’m just a rubbernecker, but the 911 lady told me to wait.  It’s mildly hot, and Flora is upset.  My friend calls me and asks what happened—I said “oh my gosh,” there was a clatter (had I dropped my phone?  No, it was the fence) and then the call ended.  I’d forgotten I’d been on the phone with her, and I briefly explained.

The police officer asked the driver her name.  It was Debbie, of all things . . .

A police van, a policeman on motorcycle, a fire truck, and an ambulance join the scene.  Debbie is strapped into the ambulance and taken away.  I wonder if I can leave.  A police officer finally comes up to me and asks if I’m a witness.  I tell him that yes, in fact, I saw the whole thing—she nearly ran me over, and I called 911. . . .

He explains that Debbie is not a DUI but severely diabetic and having a low blood sugar blackout.  On top of that, she’s hearing impaired—hence why she wasn’t communicating well with the passersby.  She will be held responsible, of course, and will have to take better care of herself if she wants to keep driving.  He’s glad I’m not hurt.

Later that day, I take my mom to show her the spot so she can visualize it, and we meet the owner of the fence.  He apparently came home to a bafflingly ruined fence and a note on his door from the police.  The smashed car is gone, and the bits of fence scattered on the sidewalk and median have been tidied up.  I explain to him what happened.  He says he’s diabetic and has family members with severe diabetes, and that you can feel problems coming on and deal with them before they get back (instead of getting behind the wheel).  He always keeps candy bars with him.

So that was fun.

(On a side note: my first cousin once removed, who's English (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Griffin), once remarked that he rather enjoys the American way of telling stories in present tense.  I almost always think about that when I tell stories like this because, yes, I pretty much always do so in present.)