Every day, we all get caught up in the chaos of our daily routines, stressing over whether we’ll make it to that doctor’s appointment across town or what to cook for dinner that your child will actually eat for once.
But sometimes, true tragedy strikes, and in that moment, you’re forced to slow down, really see your surroundings, and process grief that hits harder than any mundane day-to-day struggle.
One woman experienced this firsthand after she recently heard a fatal motorcycle accident take place outside her house. And in the end, she actually delivered a man’s final words to his widow.
She was inside her home when she heard the crash and ran outside to assist the victims. The rest of her neighbors followed suit, and once there, it became clear what had happened.
A male motorcyclist had sped too fast around a turn and slid into an oncoming vehicle. He was unconscious when she arrived on the scene, breathing heavily, and had suffered a broken wrist, a broken femur, and a collapsed lung.
“He started to gain consciousness and was terrified. An ICU nurse neighbor arrived and held his head straight; her husband checked his chest for bleeding,” she recalled.
Meanwhile, she held the man’s hand and talked to him, trying to keep him as calm as possible. He spoke about how much pain he was in, how scared he was, and asked someone to tell his wife that he loved her.
That was when she found out the man’s name: Chris. And she told Chris to focus on staying still and breathing, because everything was going to be okay.
Eventually, the paramedics arrived, and she attempted to hand Chris over to the authorities. However, he began yelling about how scared he was and clutched onto her hand.
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“When I looked over my shoulder walking away, they were doing compressions. I sat there until they stopped,” she said.
Chris tragically died in the very spot she travels by multiple times each day. So, she was overcome with emotion when she passed by the next evening and saw some people taking photographs.
At first, she thought they might be investigators. Instead, she came to learn that one man was Chris’ father, who’d lost his son the night prior. Then, she saw Chris’s wife sitting on the tailgate of a car nearby.
“I told her I was there. She hugged me immediately, and I told her what he said to me. That he loves her,” she explained.
Chris’s wife immediately collapsed into her arms, and she simply held the woman while she cried. She also discussed how all of her neighbors rushed to assist Chris following the crash, and mentioned that the other family involved in the accident was okay.
Soon afterward, Chris’s father began picking up the wreckage from the accident. That’s when she noticed he’d also grabbed the T-shirt that had been cut off Chris by the paramedics.
“The same one I had stared at every time I drove past that spot that day, the same one he was wearing,” she stated.
“I couldn’t stop staring at his father. It was the same eyes that I saw that night. The same face.”
Perhaps it was a blessing that she was there the night Chris passed away and was able to deliver his final words to his wife. Still, in the wake of the catastrophe, she plans to attend therapy to unpack everything.
Have you ever experienced a tragedy that made time feel like it was standing still?
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By Katharina Buczek
Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing in... More about Katharina Buczek
