This article is part two of my previous article. You can find it here: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/event-set-future

I ran towards the man lying in a pool of his blood. I noticed all the twisted, hot metal surrounding me as I weaved my way through the gory scene to the scruffy man. My mother and I reacted first at the scene; soon after others followed. I remember almost no details about the passerby except two: an anxious old woman and a handsome, brave navy officer. As I passed out supplies to the volunteers and put on a pair of gloves myself, the fretted old woman attempted to pull me away from the scene. “You’re too young dear,” she attempted to fondle me, her fluffy gray hair blowing in the sticky wind. I hastily pulled away with an attempted smile and turned back to the scene at hand. The scruffy man laid belly up to the hot West Texas sky, dirt sticking to his body and face. Lacerations covered his arms and belly. His shirt clung to him in tatters and his bloodstained jeans adhered him, ripped almost past recognition. A brown beard covered the scruffy man’s face and he moaned trying to speak, but he could not make coherent words. The man’s right leg got the worst of the wreck. From the scruffy man’s right knee and down seemed like sheer blood. At the very first point of skin below his knee, torn muscle and tissue protruded. A grayish, white bone poked out beneath the flesh. The lower half of his leg and his foot held on to the rest of his body by a single strip of skin. This strip of skin had twisted among itself so many times that his foot lie there on the hot asphalt facing the opposite direction of the rest of his body. His skin had twisted itself so tight that it seemed as tightly coiled as the barbed wire lining the highway. The handsome, brave navy officer must have just arrived home, still garbed in his blue digital printed uniform. The officer undid his belt and quickly pulled it loose from his pants. He then proceeded to wrap and fasten his belt tightly around the scruffy man’s upper right thigh.

At that moment, I heard a word. I turned to face the scruffy man and heard the single yet powerful word, “help.” In that moment, the scruffy man heaved his heavy eyelids open and connected with my eyes. His piercing blue eyes opened wide and glanced around scared. I drew off my gloves and reached for the scruffy man’s hand and held on tight. Someone behind me bellowed, “I called 911! They dispatched an ambulance.” The scruffy man’s employer had joined us by this time. He had found his wallet and tried to calm the scruffy man. The scruffy man held tight to my small hand, finding comfort in my warm, sweaty palm. The single thing I remember most about the scared scruffy man was not his eyes, but the smell surrounding him. The smell of sweat and blood filled the air, a sickening and powerful smell that reeked of burning oil and hot metal. The smell remains the single most distinctive sense I have ever experienced to this day.

We heard a faint siren in the distance; the flashing lights drew nearer and nearer, and the sirens grew louder and louder. As the paramedics pulled the gurney close and proceeded to push me out of their way, I strained for one last look at the scruffy man. His eyes grew wide, then clenched tight as the paramedics pulled our hands loose from one another. The paramedics swiftly loaded him into the ambulance, and his employer quickly followed suit.

The sirens started up again after a faint lull and the scruffy man sped away. My mother and I gathered up the remaining supplies and congregated the trash into piles. We began the slow saunter back to our car. As I passed the scruffy man’s shoe, lying on the asphalt twenty feet from the man’s pool of blood and ten feet from his once glossy, red motorcycle, a thought occurred to me for the first time, “I don’t ever want someone to suffer and die in a way like this.”

I climbed into my mother’s Nissan and buckled my seatbelt. My mother then did the same and we looked at each other for a brief moment. She broke the gaze and hesitantly resumed the remaining drive of fifteen miles towards home. “Mom,” I stalwartly asserted, “I’m going to fix people. I’m going to fix people like him.”