So much to tell, So little time, Part I

OK here we go, I am going to split this up in parts to make it easier to write..

Its Friday the 23rd, I have just finagled my way out of the last few hours of work so that I could arrive in Park City at a reasonable hour. I set out with my driving companion, Harry Potter, and settled in for my 6 1/2 hour drive. HP is awesome, I have done nothing but listen to those audio books for about a month and a half now. As of yesterday, I finally finished the 28 hours of Order of the Phoenix and began the most recent book, HP and the Half-Blood Prince. They may be written for kids but man they are entertaining.

The drive want relatively smoothly until around 9:15 PM, 45 minutes left in the journey. I was in Provo canyon, a windy road through the mountains and the last real challenge to the drive. In the middle of the canyon, the road narrows to two skinny lanes, and concrete barriers instead of medians. All this is due to the nearly perpetual construction of this road because of the mountains and unstable land they built it on. Suddenly I realize I am driving on a near solid sheet of ice. Just as soon as I realize this I notice some headlights coming toward me at a slightly peculiar angle. CRASH!! The headlights had just slammed into the barrier in my lane and bounced out just in time to slam into the Blazer in front of me head on. I had absolutely no time to think, there is no chance I am going to be able to stop before slamming myself into the back of the Blazer. With an instinctual light-handed use of the steering wheel and the wonderful invention of ABS I managed to slip through in the opposite lane in the gap that was about 6" wider than my truck between the concrete barrier and the still spinning Blazer. I come to a stop just afterward and watched as the car that was behind me barely stopped before hitting the Blazer himself. I pulled off the road a few yards away where the barrier ends, grabbed the flashlights from my car and ran back to the accident. Someone had already called 911 and people were gathering from all directions. There was nothing I could do except stand by and hold the flashlight as the crowd of people tried to help everyone out. The people in the Blazer were OK, one girl had a broken leg, and the others were just quite shaken up. The guys in the silver Saturn that initially spun were not in as good of shape, the driver managed to get out of the gar but he had quite a bit of blood on him. The passenger on the other hand was trapped in the car and his head was very bloody. The people helping here were yelling to get a doctor here because he was coming in and out of consciousness. One of the girls in the Blazer was on the phone with 911 but was unable to speak clearly because of the shock so I took the phone and talked with the operator describing our location until the Police and ambulances arrived. About 3 minutes passed and finally we can hear the sirens coming. I told to operator this and she said, "Ok, I am going to hang up now." Seemed like a sudden end to the only means of communication we had with the real world. Once the police arrived I could do nothing but stand aside and watch, they told me to hang around so that I could make a statement and describe what I saw. After about an hour and 5 ambulances later, the people involved were all safely on there way to the hospital and I was filling out forms and talking to the police. Afterward I was told I could return to my car but still wait just in case. Another 20 minutes passed, and an officer walks up to my car opens the door (no knock I might add) and proceeds to tell me I can leave. The problem I have with this, is the fact that he never once acknowledged me, or even looked at me, he spent the whole time looking through all my stuff in the back seat with a suspicious look on he face. No politeness, no “thanks for the help,” no nothing. OK, I understand a little, but in this situation where I had just witnessed an accident and was as helpful and cooperative as I possibly could be, I had referred to the officers as sir the whole time and never once got in the way, they STILL are suspicion and are looking for something illegal to bust me with. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

About 45 minutes later, I finally arrived home and had a beer with my dad, and another, and another, then went to bed. There is no relaxing after a thing like that. It still amazes me that I made it out unscathed.