The evening started with the notion that Friday nights should not be spent alone at home with nothing to do (which was the circumstance that I find myself in). Vince and some friends were gonna use the house to cook for some of our mutual friends. He invited me to join them, but I had an itch to go out. My mind scrambled to think of something to do...bowling?...nah...dancing?...don't know where to go...ah ha! Busboys and Poets! That place has yet to fail me, and I knew of several people who also enjoyed everything B & P had to offer. So after some phone calls and text messages, I had a group of about seven others going down with me.
After picking up and dropping off Josh back at the house, I picked up Yvonne,
Blondine and
Lemlem, and we were off to DC. Nothing special was going on at B & P that night, so we would just be there to eat, talk, maybe buy some socially-conscious books and have a great time. We got there, and eventually
Zakiya, Desiree,
Essi and Matt Wade joined us. The place was packed...people were everywhere eating, drinking, talking, schmoozing and doing whatever else young, excited, available single professionals do on a Friday night (that is, everything they can do in a public setting without getting arrested or beat up). The electricity was in the air and it was THICK...just what I needed.
I spent most of the night talking with
Essi,
Blondine and
Zakiya, as they sat on my end of the table. Yvonne was listening in on our conversations, but she didn't interject much. I was happy to talk with them all, because I've had increasing opportunities to speak with each of them over the past month or so, and I really like all three of them. They have a lot to say and keep every conversation interesting. I wanted to talk to
Lemlem more, but it didn't happen that night. "Oh well," I thought. "Another time."
Eventually our food came and went (if you haven't been to B & P, when you go, try the DC Tap Water. Tap Water never tasted so good), as did the conversations. Around 11:45
ish, we decided to head out. I dropped off
Lemlem first in
Takoma Park and decided that I'd take
Sligo Creek Parkway back, since it dumped out right at
Blondine's apartment...
Funny how a simple decision can have incredible consequences.
We were cruising along the parkway, myself,
Blondine and Yvonne, having a conversation about the scripture that says Christians are to be "
in the world, but not
of the world." We stopped at a red light at
Colesville Road and Yvonne had just finished telling us what she thought it meant. The light turned green, I started driving forward and
Blondine started to give her interpretation. A car horn blew...out of the corner of my right eye, I saw the quickest flash of oncoming head lights...and then...a loud crash and we were spinning.
Some people say when you get into a car accident, everything moves in slow motion. Not for us. None of us even saw the car coming, and before we knew what happened, it was over. As soon as he hit me, my vision went blurry. At first I thought he knocked me blind, but he just knocked off my glasses. My other senses slowly started registering...I heard myself say "Oh my gosh."...
Blondine was gripping my hand for dear life...I could smell the smoke that was left from the airbag deployment...I heard Yvonne and
Blondine moaning...I saw Yvonne's door open and she got out of the car...I felt a slight pain in my left knee. Once I realized I was not seriously injured, my firefighter instincts started kicking in: I put the car in park and shut off the engine. I checked to make sure we were not in the path of any(more) oncoming cars. I helped
Blondine out of the car. I still couldn't find my glasses, so things were still blurry, but I heard/saw someone standing on the side of the road talking on a cell phone. He said he saw the whole thing...that the guy who hit me had definitely ran the red light. Then I saw one of the
scariest sights of my life...
Yvonne was on the ground,
face down, not moving a muscle.
I prepared myself for the worst...she was dead. But I remembered I saw her get out of the car, so the
dimmest flicker of hope still burned inside me. I turned her over, making sure to keep her neck still and straight, in case she had some kind of spinal injury. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't making a sound. I called out to her and got really close to her face, checking to see if she could hear me. Then, I heard it: a soft moan. She was ALIVE! Thank God...now it was just a matter of waiting for the ambulance to get there.
The police arrived before the fire department. They looked over my car and I heard them radio to their dispatch about the accident. The fire department showed up minutes later. While I was holding on to Yvonne, I couldn't help but wonder who would show up on the ambulance and fire truck. Turns out I knew everyone from the fire department that showed up...Rick, Andre, Todd...even the captain. None of them recognized me at first (I think they were all a little surprised to see me), but eventually they knew it was me. It was very reassuring to see friendly and familiar faces at that time. It was cool to get a different vantage point of the services that we as the fire department offer every day. They really did get there quickly, they took great precautions to ensure Yvonne and
Blondine's safety and they gave excellent
pre-hospital care. If I wasn't one already, I'd have considered applying to be a firefighter!
They took all three of us to Suburban hospital. I rode in the
ambo with
Blondine, and Andre took care of me while the captain of the engine company (who was also a paramedic) rode along with us and took care of
Blondine. It was very strange to be one of the ones getting taken care of, instead of providing the care. But as I mentioned above, it was a great comfort to be in the hands of men who I knew and trusted.
We stayed at Suburban for a few hours. After getting evaluated by the nurses and doctors, we were all given the go ahead to go home.
Essi came over, stayed with us for a while and took us all home. At home, I prepared an ice pack, hobbled up to my room and tried to fall asleep. I couldn't help but think about the last several hours over and over again. God truly was looking out for all of us that night. A few of my fire department buds who took care of us that night told me that it was a very significant crash. From what I remember of looking at my car, they were right. The entire right side was smashed in.
Blondine or Yvonne easily could have been killed. Angels were protecting us that night.
As I sit and write this, I can't help but think about the shortness of life. There we were, just riding along in the car, going home after a very fun night, not having a clue that something terrible was about to happen. What if the minivan that hit us had been going faster? What if
Blondine or Yvonne hadn't been wearing their
seatbelts? There are a million "what ifs," but the bottom line is that it just wasn't our time to go. Many people have been in similar situations and not walked away. It's time to take a look a life and make whatever changes are necessary.
