In sensational stories, does "I was almost there!" count as witnessing an event?
So… I was at Costco in Billings (directly diagonal from Wal-Mart)at 12:50 when this went down.
Dad and I had planned on stopping at Wal-Mart first, but decided against it at the last moment. Costco instead.
I saw traffic backed up at the main exit and was one of the first cars to go out the back and attempt the exit 2 blocks west. We saw the body that had just been pulled from the Jeep. We both said “What the fuck?!” And dad (the professional driver) told me “Whip a U-ie quick, before everyone realizes this is blocked off!”
So… I was that close to drama.
What have you seen (or nearly seen)?
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Well, in summer 1980 I was this close » « to being sent to the Colstrip power plant when my assignment at Oregon finished up. Instead, I went to Connecticut, and since then I have never gotten to Montana.
But in other news… with all of the long-distance driving that I’ve done over the years, I’ve seen “the aftermath” of a lot of auto accidents, but no shootings yet. I’m glad for that. Wrecked cars and EMTs are bad enough.
@CWOTUS It’s providential. Colstrip is no environment I’d wish on man or beast.
Oh, I don’t suppose I would have lived there. The guys I know who did go there generally lived in Billings and commuted, sometimes in groups of 3–4 to a vehicle. At least that’s how we typically did those jobs back then.
I was always glad not to have to work in or around Rock Springs, WY, though. That place always gave me the willies just to drive through.
Either of those places would be better than any place we work now in India, though. It seems like every day on every road (and the commute to the job from the guest house is over an hour each way) is a never-ending series of near-miss incidents. I’d take my chances with Billings – Colstrip any day, I think.
Yesterday driving north on the FL turnpike all of suddenly traffic slowed way down. Cars starting merging from the right lane into the left (there are only two lanes heading north on that section of the Turnpike) and we let some cars in front of us. A few emergency vehicles were going past us. As we approached where the emergency vehicles were parked (it was only about a ¼ mile from where we originally had to brake hard as traffic slowed down) they stopped all traffic, completely barricaded the road. We were the car in front. Ugh, just missed getting through. The state trooper helper directing traffic came over to us and told us a car had flipped, how they thought the accident had happened, and that there were ten people in the car and one 12 year old boy was in critical condition. Next thing the helicopter landed in front of us on the highway to air life the boy out.
The accident happened right before the exit to go into a Turnpike service plaza. It seems the guy was cut off and swerved. Probably someone had a quick change of mind, or didn’t realize the plaza is a left hand exit. The guy who originally did the quick lane change possibly does not even know he “caused” the accident, unless he looked in his rear view.
One of my acting buddies has a good story about choosing to go do summer stock a town or two over instead of Woodstock. This was before anyone knew what it would become of course.
@serenade Yes, a friend and I considered going to that multi-day rock show in the Catskills but decided not to.
Also, someone gave me the tip to buy Pfizer stock a month before Viagra came out and I didn’t.
@JLeslie Our chopper ambulances are called Air Life and Life Flight so air life made perfect sense to me
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