This trouble call happened many moons ago, but I still think about it from time to time.
The phone rang around midnight on a summer night, dispatch said that they got a call of a car hit a pole at an intersection just outside town near the sugar factory and that was all they knew. I was still up, and it was a warm evening so no problem jumping in the pickup to go see what’s up.
There was no moon, so it was pretty dark out. I was the first one on scene. It was at one of those Y shaped intersections you sometimes see out in the country. I wondered if I was in the right place because there was no pole down or car, or police or anything else but I did notice a fuse cutout hanging open. I grabbed my flashlight and got out to have a better look when I noticed a car laying on its top about fifty feet away in the tall grass. No lights, no sound, just four tires sticking out above the grass. Gulp! I looked around and sure enough I was the only one around. I shined the light back at the pole and there was a fresh mark where the car had bounced off it.
I am not good with blood and guts and people suffering so I really did not want to go over to that car but, since I was the only one there I had to. I waded out in the grass. I could feel the adrenaline as my heart rate went up and my mouth went dry. When I got to the car I got down and looked inside and there was no one in it. I walked around it and didn’t see anyone. Well, that’s weird.
About this time, a County Sherriff came rolling up with his lights on. He got out and came over to talk to me, I filled him in on what little I knew. After thinking about a bit, the officer said, “The driver must be out here somewhere in the grass. He suggested that we stand about five feet apart and walk a circle around the car, then move out ten feet and do it again. So, we did that until we had covered the whole area. We didn’t find anyone. We went back to the car scratching our heads and then he said, “He must be under the car.” My heart rate started to rise again. As we were sizing up whether the two of us could rock it over on its side, this guy on a Honda 55 motorcycle came pulling up. We look at him and he hollers to us, “I took him to the hospital.” We walked over to him, and he says “yeah, he was hurt and wanted to go to the Emergency room, so I took him.” The hospital was across town. I asked him, “You took him to the Emergency room on that little bike?” He said, “Yeah, he said he was hurt and wanted me to take him.” What a relief! With that, I went back to my outage and the Sherriff went back to doing his thing.
By the way, when I retrieved the gate with the extendo stick, the fuse had not blown. He just knocked it open when he hit the pole.
Byron Dunn