I was teaching at a private school, and was the musical director for a show that was travelling across the country. We were performing a series of shows in the northeast of the US during a snowstorm.
We were on our way back from a show late at night, when I saw a glint out of the corner of my eye. I did not really think about what I was doing, it was as if I was outside of my body. I ran to the embankment where a car was off the road, and there was smoke coming from under the car.
I saw a woman in the car, and I climbed in through the passenger window. I saw a baby seat in the back and tried to ask the woman where her baby was. Luckily there was no baby in the car. I could smell the gasoline, and the smoke was getting thick.
One of my students was near the car, and yelled up to the others to call an ambulance. I tried to get the woman out of the car. It was then that I realized that her leg was broken, and intertwined with the metal in the car, extracting her was impossible.
She was crying, and the smoke was getting thicker, and the gas smell was getting stronger. Gus, my student, yelled "Mr C, the gas is leaking and the fire is getting closer. Get out, Get out"
The woman was crying, hysterically. She begged me, please don't leave me. I looked in her eyes, and saw nothing but raw terror there. I yelled at Gus to get away from the car. He said, Mr C, I am not leaving you. I was so torn, I did not want my student to be hurt, I did not want to leave this woman alone to burn up in this car, and I did not want to die. I had no choice in my mind, and I stayed. I just held this strangers hand, and stayed.
I was lucky, in the sense that the fire trucks and police showed up right at that moment. They covered the car with foam, and they extracted the woman with the jaws of life. A few months later when she was rehabilitated she made a trip to the school, and spoke in front of the school about her experience.
It was for me, the scariest moment in my life.
Regards,
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Midnight
Excellence is not an act, but a habit - Aristotle