Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Trail Days

Several days ago I was in Damascus for Trail Days.  There was an accident during the Hiker's Parade.  I was supposed to be in the parade as a thru-hiker, but at the last minute as I was heading toward it, I really felt that I didn't want to go.  So I watched the parade.  I was standing right where the parade stopped.  There was a lot of confusion as police, fire trucks, ambulances, and other city workers started moving all the hiker's to the side and ambulances and other vehicles whizzed by with people yelling to get out of the way.  In several minutes, we learned that a car had run over several hikers.  In a matter of moments, the timber of the celebration of Trail Days went from people squirting each other with water guns and lots of laughing and general noise to a strange hum of subdued whispers.  Then, people began milling about, looking for all of their friends.  There was a lot of "Patchouli!  I'm so glad you are OK.  Were you there?" 

I decided the best thing I could do was listen to people.  I looked for people who were especially dazed looking and just asked them if they were OK, if there were there, if they knew anyone who was hit, and if they needed to talk.

Here's what happened... a man who was the last car in the parade had a medical incident (don't know what nature of incident) slumped over his wheel and leaned on the gas.  The car was between 10-25 mph, probably, and hit several hikers.  A couple of hikers (and maybe a town worker too) were able to open the car doors and stop the car.  It stopped on top of a hiker.  The hikers then lifted the car to get her out.

Locals told me how horrible this man would feel and that he would never hurt anyone and they were so concerned how angry the hikers would be.  The hikers were merely dazed.  They talked about hearing the thudding of people against the car.  They talked about seeing the girl under the car. 

I talked specifically to two hikers whose backgrounds included being involved in a "terrorist" type attack where someone intentionally wanted to hurt a mass of people.  They were having a hard time coming to grips with what happened when no one was "at fault".  They wanted to be angry at the driver, but they couldn't because they knew it was a medical incident.  So, they didn't know what to do with those feelings of injustice and anger at friends being hurt.  It was very interesting to hear from many hiker's how their emotional background would color the present accident.

But... God is good.  With all that going on, only 5 were ambulanced to hospitals, and 3 were taken by medflight.  And, the girl who was under the car?  She suffered the worst injury of everyone... a broken pinky toe.  She was released and back at Trail Days with crutches that evening.  Everyone else (I've learned since) had lesser injuries and are all fine.  A car goes into a crowd of 1000 hikers, hits dozens, and all we get is a broken pinky toe.  I know the incident is unjust and scary, but it could have ended much, much worse.  I don't know why it happened at all, but I'm grateful that everyone did end up OK - including the driver (don't know about any charges he may face). 

Afterwards, I did talk to another hiker who said that this was a wake up call for him.  He said that he had come out to the Trail to do some thinking about his life.  I offered the opportunity for him to talk about it, which he changed the subject.  But he said that he had let the Trail distract him from what he needed to work through.  And this accident reminded him of his reason for being out here.  I hope he doesn't get distracted again.  I think I can use this as my own wake up call too.

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