I recently took a trip out of town, with two girl friends.  While we were driving, we arrived on the scene of a very serious accident.  Immediately after we stopped, I jumped from the car to see if I could help.  Now, I have no true first aid or emergency training, but I spent some time in college as a rape/domestic violence companion.  Which means I spent a lot of time at the hospital with hysterical women, while they met with doctors and police officers.

I had no idea how I was going to help the victims of this car crash, one of which was very very dead.  But I felt the need to get out of the car.  Turns out, I did help.  One of the victims was a hysterical 18 year old girl.  She was crying and screaming and starting to panic.  Needless to say the male cop and other male “volunteer” had no idea how to even communicate with her.  I took charge of her, truly I wanted nothing to do with the dead body and the emotional drain of third driver that killed him.   So I talked to her.  Asked her questions that were probably greatly annoying, but I got her to calm down and with help, I forced the door open to her car to get her out it.  Then I sat with her, kept her calm-ish and kept her from using her very broken arm.  I “helped” to an extent until the paramedics arrived.  After the paramedics arrived, I left.  I didn’t leaving my name or any information.  When I got back in the car, the other ladies, which had never even removed their seat belts, were sitting kind of awe struck.  One girl was crying, she was very clearly upset that someone had been injured in the wreck.   The other girl upset that I had involved myself in something like “that”.

Now I was, still am, very confused by their reactions, it never crossed my mind to do anything other than get out to see if I could help.  Even if the cop yelled at me to get back in the car, at a minimum, I would have a great story to pass on to my other friends.  Please understand, I did not help because I wanted notoriety and I do not relay this story now because I want any kind of notoriety.   I’ve thought about posting this story for a little while.  How do I translate this experience into some kind of advice for others?  My only response is get out of the car, it may change your life and then again, it may not, but you might get a really cool story out of it.

I don’t think that helping that girl and spending 45 minutes on the side of a road in Kansas has truly in any way changed my life, but I have a cool story to tell and maybe I changed someone else’s life.  Maybe that stranger actually needed me to talk to her and open that car door, or maybe my cool story will inspire someone else to get out of the car, or volunteer with rape/domestic violence victims.  Sometimes, the only thing people need is a calm  soothing voice or a calm presence to sit quietly with them during those intense interviews where your entire world has fallen apart.

So get out of the car, doing something that you wouldn’t normally do.  Help someone, help yourself, just get outside your comfort zone and live.