What to do when you need something a little stronger….

So today I was driving back from a meeting. I was following a lorry. Nothing untoward. Then, from out of nowhere a woman ran infront of the truck, hit it, and bounced across the road. I swerved, missed the woman lying in the road, stopped, grabbed my phone and a blanket from the car, and ran straight over to her.

She was in a bad way, but still breathing. I was trying to keep her still while I called an ambulance. Then her boyfriend appeared, he was shouting and crying and started trying to pick her up. The more he did this, the more she screamed, and the more I told him to stop…. Then he was threatening to effing punch me in the effing face. It was awful.

Thankfully, a med student stopped in his car and took over from me. This meant I could go and comfort the guy who was driving the lorry. He was physically shaking, clearly devastated and I was trying to calm him down and reassure him that there was absolutely nothing he could have done. Then I was playing referee while the boyfriend was throwing punches at the shaking lorry guy.

Several ambulances, a trauma team, first responders, incident officers, and police arrived. Thankfully for the lorry guy, someone behind me had a dashcam which clearly showed what happened, and the police were very clear that it was not lorry guy’s fault at all. Sadly, it would appear that this was quite a regular thing for this poor girl, and she was known to the police.

So the police car drove off, the ambulance left, the lorry guy gave me a hug and a heartfelt thank you, and that was it.

Then I got about 2 miles down the road, burst into tears and started shaking.

Later on, I texted my sister who replied with words to the effect of “blimey. You need a beer”. This seems to be the natural reaction; something stressful happens and you shun offers of tea and half jokingly half seriously say “do you have something stronger??”

I have nothing but respect for the emergency services, and anyone else who deals with that sort of thing day in, day out. It has pretty much wiped me out today, but at least i haven’t cracked! Currently sat scoffing chocolate on the sofa, and gave joss an extra big squeeze before bedtime.