This Past Weekend - Part 3, Sunday...

Sunday morning was not much different to Saturday, up early to go fishing only to find the wind already blowing. Not a problem though as Mum was already awake and sitting up in bed, reading. We turned on the TV and tuned into the Japanese F1 Grand Prix which was just about to start. I didn't even know that Mum liked F1...go figure. She's a bit like Steph when it comes to sport..."oh, for fuck sakes, sport on the telly again", so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to watch the race with her. And what a race it was...just as I thought the German fuckwit was about to go and win another race, with 6 laps to go, the Ferrari engine goes and blows up. Disgust on Mum's part, as she's a "Schumie" fan (I thought she had taste), but cries of elation and punching of the air on my part. Yes, I support Alonso. There's just something about that square German jaw that makes me want to punch shit out of it... Today, we decide to shower and get ready earlier than Saturday and go and have breakfast at the same place we had lunch the day before. After breakfast and buying the newspaper for Dad, we arrive at the hospital right at opening time. To cast a little more light on Government hospitals in SA, let it suffice to say these are places you don't want to end up in when you come out to for the World Cup in 2010 (if it happens). To give you a small example, Mum had to take a towel through for Dad, as the hospital "does not supply towels to patients" (straight from the ward sister's mouth). Anyway, he's getting treated and that's the main thing... Dad's in fine spirits when we get there, except for the fact that he'd had the nurses making a racket again. I told him I think it's cultural...SA blacks have a tendency to speak loudly, but this is to let you know they are there and not sneaking up on you to steal your stuff or assault you. I notice on the digital machine above the bed that Dad's blood pressure is more or less normal, but that his heart rate is up by twelve beats from the day before. I ask the sister about this and she says it's a good sign. The heart is beating faster because it can as it is a little less restricted than the day before. A good sign indeed... Apparently Dad will still be in the hospital for a couple of more days, more for observation and rest than any special treatment, but I'd rather have him there for that period so that he can continue convincing himself that his smoking days are over and his lifestyle is changing for good. Some friends of my folks arrived while we were still there and it was during that time that I decided that things were looking up, that Dad was getting better and Mum was handling the situation, that I was going to drive home after leaving the hospital. If I had been in any doubt as to either of those reasons, I would have stayed on longer. As it is right now, I'm happy with the progress of both parents, so I'm happy with my decision to come home to my life up here in Joburg. The drive home, however, was not without mishap. The road was busy, with more trucks and heavy lorries than I ever remember seeing travelling between Durban and Joburg on a normal, "non-holiday", weekend. The accident I witnessed though, had nothing to do with lorries. I was about 175km from home and it had been dark for about 30mins. About 100m in front of me was a Nissan bakkie (pickup) and I moved into the righthand lane to overtake it. As I got into the lane, I heard a loud bang, saw a puff of dust from under the Nissan, and reslised that he'd had a tyre explode. The driver must have stood on the brakes (wrong thing to do in the circumstances) as he lost control of the car. It swerved in front of me, first left then right, upon which the righthand wheels dug into the road and the car rolled twice, straight across my path. Doing about 140km/hr, I stood on my brakes, while trying to watch what's going on and reach for the hazard lights switch at the same time to warn other drivers behind me. I noticed in my rear view mirror that other drivers had also switched on their hazard lights and were slowing down. The Nissan came to a halt, about 50m ahead of where it had started rolling, half on the fast lane of the highway and half on the grass verge between the opposing sides of the highway. I managed to stop without hitting anything, or being hit from behind, and pulled onto the grass shoulder with my full beam lights on to show what was happening in front of me. I noticed a child, perhaps 5yrs old, jump through the open hole where the windscreen had been, run across the highway onto the grass, an adult get up and run from the middle of the highway onto the same piece of grass as the child and grab hold of the boy. I saw another adult drag an elderly lady from the road and lay her down on the grass in front of my car. In total, there were five adults and two children in the bakkie, and each one of them had some form of injury except for the driver who was shaken, but unhurt. I grabbed my phone and jumped out of the car, remembering that I'd passed a police car about a minute before all the drama unfolded. I ran back up the way I'd travelled, waving at passing cars to slow down and move to the lefthand side of the highway. The policeman had stopped about 50m back from my car, and turned on his blue roof lights. When I got to him, he was already on the phone, calling for assistance. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the policeman and I were the only ones to stop and offer any form of assistance to these people. To all the others who had stopped behind me and witnessed the carnage, and had carried on without at least offering to help, FUCK THE LOT OF YOU!! My car was still parked just before the accident scene, with hazards flashing a warning to oncoming motorists, but was quite ineffective when you are working in otherwise pitch blackness. The policeman had no charged batteries for his torch (fuck knows what he'd been doing with them) and no form of attracting attention other than a luminous strip on his overcoat. While he waved the overcoat to get cars to move to the left, I ran back to my car and grabbed a hazard triangle (compulsory in bakkies, as they should be in ALL vehicles) and started waving that at the oncoming cars. We were about 100m up the highway from the scene, and, needless to say there were some absolute fuckin' arseholes coming at us without reducing their speed. On two occasions, cars passed us doing more than the speed limit and one of them missed the Nissan by mere millimetres (I thought he was going to plow into the Nissan and complicate things more) and just carry on without even touching his brakes, while the other one saw the accident at the last moment and almost lost control of his car while trying to swerve out of the path of the Nissan. FUCK YOU TWO, AS WELL!! Happily, nobody connected the Nissan or any other person at the scene. An elderly man, a passenger of the Nissan, had been in the road picking up belongings just seconds before the speedsters came past us. If he'd been there seconds later, we would have had another accident. I offered a bottle of water, the only sustenance I had with me at that time, to one of the female passengers to offer to the rest of the victims while we continued slowing traffic. We managed to create enough of a backlog of cars so as to slow the entire highway down to a crawl, getting everyone to move across to the left. Needless to say, there was also a considerable amount of "rubber-necking" going on as people tried to see what was going on as they passed the accident scene. The first of the paramedics arrived within 15mins or so of the accident happening, and immediately the lady paramedic took a look at the elderly woman, who had been propped up by (what I assumed to be) her family, her back against the legs of one of the other female passengers. The elderly lady had considerable head injuries and I saw the paramedic feel for a pulse on the jugular vein, then lie the old lady down, so I fear the worst for her. I can't confirm it, but I think she died at the scene. An ambulance arrived, as did an Emergency Medical Services person from the toll company who control that piece of the highway. I asked him if he needed anything from me, but was told that they just needed my contact details in case there was an inquiry (I expect that, if the old lady did die, I might be getting a call for a statement). After that, I gave my details to the policeman with whom I had been directing traffic, and he said thanks for my efforts. As I got back in my car and reversed from the scene, a doctor was putting a stethoscope to his ears to check for a heartbeat on the old lady, but I don't know what the outcome was. The lady paramedic also came up to my window and said thanks for my assistance and I told her I'd given my details to the other two guys if they need me. As there was nothing else I could do, I got back onto the highway and immediately phoned home to tell Steph that I'd be a little later than expected. She said that she'd expected me to be home already, but was glad that I was okay and on my way. I got home about an hour later than expected, but unharmed... A weekend, as I'm sure you'll agree, I don't want to experience again...