Some of you may recall about 7 months ago I came upon a rather
grizzly accident . Being the good guy that I am I stopped to help. When it was apparent that I could not help anyone, I did the next best thing, and took pictures of the scene.
While there were people like Boy Alley that thought I was wrong in doing so, the CHP did not feel the same way and had me burn the pics to a CD for them.
So, why am I talking about it today? I just got done giving a statement to the insurance company of the guy that was killed. Reliving that night over breakfast was interesting if nothing else.
After giving my statement, the insurance adjuster filled in some gaps for me, as a lot of what I had determined was based solely on reviewing the pictures and what I had seen, which was after the actual impact.
Apparently, the dead guy had gotten into a solo accident with the center divider, causing his Lincoln to spin out and disabling it. He got out of the car to investigate the damage to his vehicle.
A lady in a Suburban was just driving along when she suddenly came upon the Lincoln, and striking it with such force that it spun it around, throwing the guy into another lane where at least one other vehicle struck him, one of them apparently driving over his skull. Sucks to be him, but it gets better?
The driver of the Suburban has been in a coma for the past 7 months. Her brain had swollen so much that they had to remove her skull, which was only reattached last week. Sucks to be her, but it gets better still.
When I left they were still trying to get into the Suburban to rescue the lady. From what I was told, the cop said he smelled alcohol, so they assumed she had been drinking. Based on that they placed her at blame for the accident, and filed manslaughter charges against her. Blood tests show she had a BAC of 0.00. The dead guy had a BAC of .10, so he was over the limit.
As far as the pictures, it seems the only pics taken by the CHP were of the vehicles, after they had been towed from the scene.
Lesson learned: Don't get out of your car when in the middle of the freeway unless it is safe, and then, get over to the side of the road. Don't stand by your car until it is safe to do so.
Also, it turns out there had been an accident close to that location about 8 weeks prior. One of the vehicles had lost its license plate. The cops initially thought the owner of that plate must have been involved. So they woke them up at 4:30 AM. If you ware in a wreck, and you lose a license plate as a result . . . go track it down. You never know what might happen if you don't.