Okay let me set the scene for you. My best friend and I are avid day-trippers. If we have a free day, you won’t catch us within the city limits. So on Saturday we were going to head to our favorite beach, but we changed our plans spur of the moment and went to a beach we had never visited before, St. George Island. This island is home to quaint beaches and small town vibes. It is also home to a state park with nine miles of beautiful white sand beaches, camping sites, and protected vegetation. After getting our tan on for a few hours, we stop to grab some lunch at a local restaurant. While we’re eating, a fire truck comes rushing by; mind you this is an actual truck. Probably an F-250 because this is a small town and they do not usually need heavy duty fire trucks. Anyways, we don’t think much of it and we continue to eat our lunch. A few minutes later we get in the car to head home.
Now begins the action. We get onto the bridge to go home and there is a line of cars stopped. One by one we see cars carefully making three point turns on this small bridge heading back to the island. A car next to us is pulled over and the driver rolls down his window and says that there was an accident, no one has died, but the bridge is closed for four to six hours. Now we can see a state trooper approaching our car, he tells us about the accident, that there is a helicopter coming to pick someone up so we need to leave the bridge, and it will probably be open again in two hours. We carefully turn the car around and park by a fishing pier.
I’m not going to lie to you, at first we did not handle this situation very well. We treated it like the first world problem it was. There was some complaining, some thinking of excuses about why we absolutely needed to get off the island, pretty please, and there was some thought of leaving the car and just swimming home. But then there was some praying. Praying for the victims, for the emergency helpers, for the families affected, and for the people stuck on either side of the island. And then came the realizations. The realization that this was not about us and how this delay was influencing our plans for the night. This was about the people who were most likely injured in this accident and what affect this would have on their lives.
We asked a fireman stationed in front of the bridge if there we any updates. He said it would be two to four more hours and that two people had died. Suddenly the nature of this day changed drastically. Before, everyone was okay and we would all be home soon. Now two people wouldn’t be going home.
We spent the rest of our time on the island dancing to throwback songs on the fishing pier, exploring the small town, watching an older couple renew their vows, watching people come together as a community during a tragedy. Once the sun started to set, we saw people get out of their cars that were lined up ready to get on the bridge. People were taking pictures of the truly beautiful sunset. My friend turned to me and said: “Those people never got to see this sunset. This sunset is for them.” And we sat there thinking until it went down. I got to thinking, I never saw one other person get upset or agitated about this inconvenience. Everyone just made the best of it, tried to cheer other people up, and just loved on each other.
Around 7:30 the bridge was opened and we started to head home. The bridge was closed from roughly 2:00 PM to 7:30 PM. As soon got we onto the bridge we said another prayer for everyone and spent the remainder of the time on the bridge in silence. It was chilling and reflective. A day of fun and escape turned into a day of sorrow and reflection.
As a human race, we spend so much time thinking about how inconveniences affect us. But we spend so little time thinking about how other people are affected. It is a shame that often something terrible has to happen for us to take a step back and think about another person’s life.
This article is dedicated to everyone who was in the accident and the emergency workers who worked very hard and efficiently. Drive safe and always look for meaning in setbacks.
