Bang.

At 4:55 yesterday afternoon I stepped out of the Sobey's near my house in a bit of a rush. I had just picked up the remaining ingredients that I needed to make dinner and I was hurrying off to me a friend who I was nearly late to see. Since I start both of my new jobs next week I've been trying to catch up with friends who I might not see for a while since my schedule as a grad student has been more accommodating for their schedules as parents or commuters and that's all about to change.

When I stepped out of the grocery store I heard sirens and the familiar sound of a vehicle slowing down and then speeding up at intersections. I advanced along the side walk. When I got to the next intersection I decided to turn around to see how close the emergency vehicle was before I entered the intersection and I saw the police vehicle speeding its way up Metcalfe, other vehicles pulling out of its way. When I turned back around the light had changed, and I waited, uncharacteristically. I'm a habitual jaywalker but for some reason the combination of the red light and emergency vehicle gave me cause for pause. Then, just as the police vehicle was about to enter the intersection a cab pulled out from the side of the street, having dropped off a customer, and into the intersection. Bang. The vehicles collided, the police vehicle tearing the front clean of the cab, crossing two lanes of the road and eventually coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. 

And then, there was a moment of stunned silence and stillness.

I dropped my groceries and ran to the cab, arriving at the same time as two other witnesses. All of his air bags had deployed but he was conscious and mercifully had no passengers who would have been sitting on the side that had been hit. I left the other two witnesses and ran to the police vehicle. When I opened the door and asked if the officer was alright, the first words out of his mouth were "I hit my head". I tried to talk to him to keep him calm when he started inquiring about the other driver and who was going to direct traffic. After a couple of minutes he got out and moved towards the other vehicle, luckily just to see if the other driver was okay. In a state of shock he then tried to start directing traffic when his colleagues arrived, and was ushered into another vehicle. Both he and the other driver were taken to the hospital, the other main witness and I left standing on the sidewalk waiting to give police reports the gasoline spilling out of the cab onto the road stinging our eyes. 

It's troubling to think about the fact that if I had been 30 seconds earlier or if I had jaywalked that I probably would have been hit by the police vehicle when it jumped the curb, it's also pretty amazing that no one else was hit on the busy sidewalk in downtown Ottawa that was about to be full of office workers leaving for the day. I also think that this is a nice reminder that people often come together during emergencies. I didn't hesitate to run to the vehicles to try to help the drivers, and neither did the young Muslim woman standing with me. I'm not sure what either of us would have done had we not found conscious breathing people in the vehicles. While I was standing with the police officer, several other people also stopped to offer assistance including a nurse. 

So, keep your head up and be grateful for today.