Sunday, August 7th, 2016, a portion of the family and myself loaded up into our vehicle at 03:32 for our 12 hour drive home. I was in the driver's seat, Dad in the passenger's and my fifteen year old sister in the back. We were making excellent time by missing all of the bay area traffic and were cruising through Coalinga, CA by 06:30. We approached a small hill but before reaching the top, an explosion of dust filled the air. I knew what had happened before seeing anything. While pulling over onto the right shoulder, I was watching a young woman pull her toddlers out of a demolished vehicle to the left. My hazards were on before my dad could say anything and he jumped out before I had put the car in park.
Without words, my dad and I ran across the freeway and let our instincts take over. The overwhelming smell of gasoline filled the air and smoke quickly followed. Within seconds, I had a kid in my arm, placed him away from the broken glass and was crawling through the broken driver's window to turn off the engine. At the same time, my dad was throwing debris out of the right lane. I soon joined him and cleared a lane for cars to continue driving though. We ran over to the terrified woman and proceeded to ask if her and the kids were alright. To our surprise, the woman was only marked with a few scratches on her arms and legs; the kids practically untouched. She was crying hysterically and we tried our best to calm her down by grabbing a suitcase for her to sit on and finding some blankets for them all.
The adrenaline had blocked all of the details. I looked down only to be surprised by pieces of broken glass covering my torso and a bloody scratch on my right shin. I then surveyed the area and debris had been scattered at least 50 feet along the freeway. The car had flipped three times and they were still alive. They had nothing but a few scratches. How could this be possible?
I found myself staring at the woman and her children while she was making some phone calls. A man who had stopped to help shortly after us caught my stare and said, "It's incredible. Isn't it?" I nodded my head and responded with, "That they are alive? It's more than incredible." That's when my hands began to shake uncontrollably. I began to think of the scene we could have pulled up on and felt the tears gather in the corners of my eyes.
My dad and I were at the scene for about 30 minutes before firefighters and police arrived; that's when we were thanked and asked to leave. We got back on the road and sat in silence for quite some time. I can't remember when my hands finally stopped shaking.
We got home and I told my closest friends about what had occurred because it had been weighing on my chest for nine hours and I needed to release it. All of the responses were something along the lines of "that's amazing that you guys helped" or "you saved their lives". I know they all meant the best but isn't it sad that we have been conditioned to think this way? That what my dad and I did was going "out of our way" and most people wouldn't have done that? When I pulled over, I didn't even think about how much time this was going to add onto the drive or if I really wanted to pull over, I just did. As a human being helping another human being, it is what we do.
Maybe that's our biggest problem as humans; we allow the world to condition and harden us to be selfish because it is what is safest for ourselves. Yes, driving past the scene would have been the safest way to go due to the two cars who almost slammed into all of us, but that's not what should be conditioned in our minds. We should all remember that something like this could happen to any of us. We must also remember that we are lucky to wake up everyday, alive.
No one is guaranteed a tomorrow - always remember to spread kindness, stay away from selfishness and be grateful.
