I saw the accident unfold and reacted in plenty of time. For a second so much debris flew up into the air that I wondered if the truck bed had lost cargo too.
I pulled up in the right shoulder alongside the Chevy. With the airbags deployed you couldn't see the inside of the car. I opened the passenger door. The lone occupant was the driver, a woman in her late fifties named Lori who was unhurt but disorientated and could not reach the seat belt release. I climbed in - moving a stack of Lisa Gardner hardcover mysteries from the library out of the way - and undid the belt. She asked me to call for help and I said that was already taken care of.
Meanwhile Lu was on the phone with 911. I went to check on the second driver, who was a little banged up but predominantly just angry at the owner of the boat, who had not stopped and who kept driving away. The man tried to move his car out off to the side (the accident effectively blockaded three lanes) but I told him there was no chance; his tire was flat and the tie rod looked broken.
911, btw, was watching over the traffic cams and scolded me (via Lu) for walking in the traffic lanes but, whatever. Lu waved to the cameras, as she stood with the first driver.
Lori, the driver, was still visibly shaken.
"This is my first accident," she said
"Ever?," I said. She was near sixty, and had probably been driving 40 years.
"Yes."
"Then you're very lucky. And you still are - you're able to walk away from this."
Anyway, with deputies pulling up on the scene we said goodbye and left - after I congratulated her on her taste in books.
An hour later, by the way, we're driving in the Town of West Bend and a pickup truck with a bed full of lumber lost its load in the street in front of us. No harm done tho.
Not a great day for driving I guess.
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