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Tennis, Chips, People Getting Run Over
// 28th May
Last night Junji, Johannes, Micah, and I went and played tennis, as tends to happen on a Wednesday. I’m a rubbish tennis player, but it’s fun. We played a set (I was on the losing side of that one), and then the lights went out. Apparently they overheat or something, I don’t know. I hate to think how they go in summer. They also go out if you stand too still for too long, which can happen when I play tennis. You have to wait quarter of an hour before they can be turned back on again, it’s kind of annoying.
Micah hadn’t eaten, so he was keen for chips. I’d only half eaten, so I was up for it. So we chucked the gear in my car and walked down the road looking for a shop. Just before we hit the shops there was a woman walking in the opposite direction to us on the other side of the street. She was wailing and crying and talking to herself. We didn’t take too much notice, just assumed she was extremely upset, fair drunk, or psychologically unstable, or some combination of those.
About ninety seconds after we’d passed her she threw herself in front of a car. At least I think she did, can’t be sure I guess, but it seems that way. We heard a screech of brakes and a thud. We pretty much all cussed in horror at once, and ran back up the street. The driver was out of his van, and understandably pretty shocked. Johannes talked to the driver to keep him calm, Micah and Junji called the ambulance, and I got down beside the woman and made sure she was alive/breathing. Which she was, fortunately, ’cause I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t breathing. I asked her what her name was, but she murmured something and wouldn’t really talk. So I just kept talking to her to keep her calm. She tried to get up once and I had to hold her head still. I felt the back of her head (she was lying on her back), and was surprised not to feel blood.
Two more women arrived on the scene then, one in a leopard-print coat, and the other with a smoke. Smoking woman kept yelling all sort of ridiculous things, like, “What’s your name? Don’t move! Can you reach your wallet so we know your name?! Does anyone here know CPR?!”. I don’t know what use CPR is for someone who is already breathing. Maybe she was going to CPR the bump on her head, who knows. I shooed smoking lady away, and Leopard-print lady took over the job of keeping her calm and still.
It seemed pretty much a case of just waiting for the ambulance, so I went and informed ten or fifteen vehicles in either direction on the street that they’d have to turn around. No idea why one of the twenty people who had gathered on the side of the road hadn’t realised that needed to be done. There were two buses also, and one of them told me there was no way he could turn his bus around and he’d just wait. Sure thing mate, it’ll only be forty-five minutes, suit yourself. The ambulance took about ten minutes, and they sorted the scene out.
The police came soon after, and we had to describe everything and give our details so we could give a statement later. Micah had got bored of all the flashing lights I guess and went and ordered his chips. So when the police told us we could go we went and picked them up and walked back to the tennis courts. Full of salty goodness, we switched partners for the second set. But I was still on the losing side.
Later I was thinking back over the situation, and I noticed some weird things. Two men actually got to the scene before we did, but I never noticed them at the time because they just stood there and didn’t do anything. It only took ten or so seconds to run back up the street, but they hadn’t even checked if the woman was alive. Also, I had no urge whatsoever to even ask the woman what she was upset about when we passed her in the street, yet moments later I was making to hold her brains in if I needed to. I should have let go of my introversion too – when no one knows the capabilities of anyone else, leadership falls to whomever yells the loudest. Smoking lady was loud, and clearly exacerbating the situation. I shouldn’t have been afraid to move her away early and encourage leopard-print lady to keep on doing such a good job, and I for sure should have told a few people to stand back. But it feels weird to tell people to stand back when you’re not yourself. Everyone wants a squiz at the accident, right? Also, at no stage did I feel the need to let the Twitter-sphere in on it.
Every day’s an emergency. Wednesday night tennis is great.
6 Comments
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This is probably the best thing you’ve ever written on here, since forever. These things should happen more often around you, so I don’t get bored of being your friend.
sylv, May 29th
Good job Tristan. You’ve got to admire those Barnes’ calmness and clarity of thought (ordering chips) in the heat of the moment. On another note, I’ve just installed Firefox and discovered that it spell checks everything for you. Bonus! And on a musical note, Sparkadia? Thoughts? I dig.
Jonno, May 29th
@Jonno, Firefox is fun. Sparkadia are too, though I don’t own much of theirs.
tristan, May 29th
yeah you mentioned this the other day but i didn’t hear much more of it. perhaps i was too busy being hilarious. sorry if that’s the case.
anyway, big deal. i don’t mean the “big deal” that means “not a big deal”. i mean the other one, the one that mean “that really is a big deal.”
today on my way home i saw an L plate motorcyclist down. he was ok, but probably should have taken a breather before trying to battle parramatta road traffic again. it’s put a bit of a dampener on my motorbike plans…
mctock, May 30th
Sometimes I wish stuff like that happened around me, but then I realise it’s definitely not what I want, I don’t want people to be hurt, I just want a chance to be a hero. I’m pretty sure I’d be a guy who gets there first then doesn’t do anything though…
Mellow, June 3rd
I too have started using Firefox. Man, it’s rad! The add-ons really sold it to me. oh, Sylv’s mean too!
Josh, June 6th