Upside Down, Inside Out Chapter 1

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This first part is a bit graphic. What is being described is what the boy learned and remembered of the incident.

**********

Everything, and I do mean everything, changed for me the day that my mother died. That was three years ago, I was ten years old.

She was on her way to work, she liked to be in the office early; that was quite normal for her, especially as she was likely to become a partner in the law firm she worked at, they were on the point of offering it to her when her life ended in just a few brief seconds.

She had a green light, and had just entered the intersection, when some guy at the wheel of a big semi blasted through the red doing nearly 65 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. He hit her passenger side door, the impact literally threw the small car, spinning as it went off the ground, directly into the front end of a large van about to make a left turn in the lane next to her. Her car was crushed between the semi and the van.

The semi continued barreling across the intersection, ending up on the wrong side of the street, then went over the curb before running into the one cement pole near that intersection. The high speed impact snapped the pole, and it slowly toppled through the semi cab, grazing the driver's head, before smashing through the top of the trailer, landing on top of and partially crushing the near end of a few heavy steel pipes.

Mom had no chance at all, when her car hit the van, the engine plant was pushed right through the front seat. The driver of the van stepped out of his vehicle, took a brief look into the car and promptly tossed up his breakfast onto the street before staggering off the road.

Police, fire and ambulance were on the scene within a few minutes; some of them, looking inside the car, reacted like the van driver. A member of the fire department opened the door of the semi cab to find the driver slumped over the wheel, out cold, a second opened the other door. What the two fire department personnel saw inside the cab horrified them, the driver had an opened case of what are commonly called tall boy cans of beer, two cans were missing and the flats for two other cases were on the floor, as were many empty cans.

They managed to wake the driver, and a police officer came over to do the breathalyzer test which revealed the driver was at nearly twice the legal limit. A quick scan of his log showed he had been driving well beyond the twelve to fourteen hour maximum most states allow. The driver of the semi found himself being hauled away from his truck and stuffed into the back of a police cruiser after being Mirandized.

One of the paramedics had found the van driver, quickly checked him over and found he was okay, just very shaken by what had happened.

The accident drew a crowd, many people in vehicles who had either witnessed it or were curious, and others walking by stopping to look. The accident also drew some news crews, who quickly got the word out about the accident, drawing even more of a crowd to the scene.

Several fire department members started using the Jaws of Life to get into Mom's car. It was obvious even before they started that there was nothing that could be done for her, but they still needed to extract her remains from the vehicle. Her partially crumpled briefcase was found in the back seat footwell on the passenger side, it had literally been shoved through the seat, leaving a large hole in the seat itself.

Once they had her info, which was in a small purse inside the briefcase, the emergency personnel contacted Dad. He was just about to head into the office after having seen me out to the bus that takes me to and from school each day when he got the call about Mom. Once he knew what had happened, he informed them that I was on the way to school, what school I attended and was told they would send someone to the school to meet me and inform me of my mother's death.

**********

I was completely unaware that anything had happened, blissfully listening to my fave music on my iPod while the bus crossed the city. I was dropped off about half a block from school, and wandered through the main doors a couple of minutes later. As I headed to my locker, I crossed paths with my gym teacher, who informed me that I was to go to the principal's office immediately, then said that I wasn't in trouble.

Well, that had me completely confused, if I wasn't in trouble, why did I need to go there? Then, as I opened the office door, I saw the young female police officer in the waiting room; she turned, asked my name, then pulled me to a chair and had me sit down. That was when I knew that something bad had happened, as soon as she told me about my Mom's death, I broke down completely, bawling my eyes out.

I found out later from Dad that he called in to his work, told them what happened, and was told to take whatever time he needed to sort things out. He had been a big part of their current business boom, and they wanted him to be able to return to work at full capacity, if that meant he needed a long break before he could step back in as their front-line manager, they would deal with it and he wouldn't lose his job.

See, Dad had a big interest in tool and dies when he was in school years ago, and he was hired by the company he works for within three months of his finishing college. He worked for about five years on the plant floor before he noticed something that could be improved, passed it up to the floor manager, and after the improvement was done, resulting in somewhat faster production, he ended up in management, then spent the next five or six years working his butt off and climbing the management ladder, reaching his current position as finance VP early last year. Since he became part of the management team, productivity has nearly tripled, sales have boomed and he's become very popular there. Business has been so good that the company is looking at purchasing a bigger site to expand their production lines.

So, to get back to me, I sat there in this nice police officer's arms for a fair while, bawling like crazy before the tears finally slowed. She continued to hold me and told me that my mother hadn't suffered at all, she had died instantly. I'm glad she didn't suffer.

The principal called my dad, let him know my reaction and said he would allow me some time off from school if I wanted it. Dad set him straight, knowing that even something as serious as this wouldn't pull me away from my interest in school. After Dad gave him assurances that I would see someone recommended by our doctor to help deal with the loss of my mother, he gave in and said things would stay as they were.

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Comments

urk

Sadly I think this happens far more often that people like to believe...

That happened to one of my friends my freshman year, her dad was killed by a drunk driver who crossed the median on the 101 freeway. Ugh.. The only good thing is the drunk picked the wrong freeway to be stupid on... that side of the freeway ends in a long drop into the Pacific Ocean =p

That poor kid though..god to lose a parent....

I can only hope that

I can only hope that something good eventually comes out of this tragedy, for both the boy and his father, because they, along with the dead mother are the victims here.
In my very humble opinion and work history as a LEO, investigating way too many of these type incidents; DUI accidents ARE NOT accidents, because people CHOOSE to drink and drive.

The Emergency Services

joannebarbarella's picture

They have to deal with these tragedies day in, day out. I know it's way too early for dad to think about this but I hope the truckie's Insurance Company is informed asap.

Insurance Companies

Can be a real pain in the arse as we all know. They'll be involved, but only briefly, I already have plans for what will happen.

Reply

Losing someone in an auto accident can be hard.

My senior year in high school. The senior class lost a fellow classmate. The worst part was I saw the seen where he died. He was speeding and took the exit ramp off a freeway and was thrown from his car. I didn't know it was him until the next school day. The day of his funeral the school gave the whole senior class the day off of school to attend I'd say 75% of the senior class was there. Knowing you saw the place where a fellow class mate died will scare you for ever.

I didn't know him at all but would have gone if I knew about it sooner.

Wolf_0.jpg

It's never a drunk hitting

It's never a drunk hitting another drunk, is it ?
Something like this can destroy the surviving family members.

Karen

Kill Themselves

If people want to drink themselves senseless and kill themselves I have no problem with that. Knock yourselves out (no pun intended). But it hardly ever seems to work that way. The drunk goes out and hits a car with a family of four in it, killing the parents and one of the children. The four year old that's left can't understand why she is pulled out of her home where she lived with her loving family and dumped in a welfare home and a series of foster homes where the people care more about how much they can make off the child than they do about her.*

Meanwhile the drunk survives just fine getting only some bumps and cuts. He pays a fine, the insurance co. pays for the damages and six months later he's back out on the road gambling with somebody elses lives.

*Yes, I'm thinking about a specific real life situation.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Sad but...

Jamie Lee's picture

Any drunk driver killing someone should have an automatic life sentence in prison, without the possibility of parole. No if's and's or but's.

As sad as this death is, at least the young man is old enough to understand why his mom isn't coming home. And realize he and his dad need each other now more than ever. But getting through the rest of the school day? How well can he concentrate on each class? He'll be only remembering the times with his mother.

Others have feelings too.