Good Deeds?

I had forgotten to tell all of you of our good deed. Stop laughing - we're a nice couple. It is possible that my cynical husband might do a good deed.

The other day while driving home from - getting new tires (which really pissed and stressed me out) and having a wonderful hour long massage (which did the opposite made me into a limp noodle) - we witnessed something as a nurse and paramedic I NEVER want to see again. A motorcyclist turned left and then lost it hitting a pole and sending the motorcyclist tumbling.

Now amazingly enough I actually saw it happen. This is amazing because as D calls it I'm the world's worst witness in a vehicle. I zone out - I'm somewhere else - looking at the trees, the radio, the back of my eye lids. Well somehow I managed to see it. D didn't even have to point it out to me.

We were also the ONLY vehicle to stop and see if the motorcyclist was okay. This was a busy road - lots of people saw this occur. We were the ONLY vehicle to stop. The motorcyclist - denied injury although he was limping. He popped up and ran to the bike as soon as he quit tumbling. D asked if he wanted us to call anyone, the cops, ambulance, someone to come get him? The motorcyclist denied all of those things. Finally he asked if D would help him get the motorcycle back up his leg was sore but not sore enough that he wanted to go to the hospital for it. D helped. D also noted the license plate number. The motorcyclist tried to get the bike going again to no avail.

We again asked if he wanted us to call anyone... No - but could you drive me to a friends house? Okay sure if it's near by. So we did that. In the back of my mind I'm thinking Gosh this kid looks young... maybe I'm just getting old? I wanted to ask do you want us to call your parents, but figured that would be rude. We dropped the kid off at the friend's house. I wrote down the house number and we then called 911. By the way we'd farted around for about a half hour at the time we finally took this kid down to the house - someone should have been there by then. That many people see something like that 911 is called almost immediately. 30 minutes of farting around and no ambulance, sirens, fire etc. Apparently they showed up at 35 minutes. So we get back down to the accident scene, D gives the officers the info and tells them where we dropped the kid off at.

We then leave and go grocery shopping. Phone calls start coming in... from the city cop, then from the sheriff's department. All wanting to know a description. I gave the description as somehow I managed to get all the details in regards to the kid. I said he looked 12, about 60 kgs (120 lbs) very scrawny. Well after grocery shopping I began to wonder if maybe I didn't do a dyslexic thing... I'm bad about transposing numbers. I'm not dyslexic- it's just something that happens with numbers for me. I am a freak about memorization of numbers (phone, social security, drivers license, birthdates, addresses, etc) however when stressed i tend to transpose a number here and there. It happened when I had my car accident back when I was 16. I had all the numbers for the drivers home phone number- so her parents could be called, but I switched one number with another. Just happens. No rhyme or reason, only when stressed. So we went back to where we dropped the kid off - no cop cars... I looked at the house number, and it was right. D drove down a bit and there were the cop cars.

Now here's where it gets interesting... we did something that was against our better judgement. The kid did not act like anything illegal had occurred. Not wanting to report a personal injury accident is not a crime. The kid had the key to the motorcycle. I saw it. I'm positive about this.

Turns out the kid was 15. He'd stolen the bike. He'd asked us to drop him off close to home. If you can imagine D cursing - you'd be right. D never disclosed to the officer's he was a cop. He's glad of this. I laughed the whole ride home. While we helped to catch the criminal we also unintentionally aided him as well. Looking back - I'd do the same thing. We'd farted around long enough that cops should have been there. If this kid would have been seriously hurt his "golden hour" in trauma speak would have been toast - oh and this area we were at was only maybe 5 minutes away from a level I trauma center so ambulances and cops should have been quicker. I'm glad he wasn't hurt. I just wish he had been honest.

Lesson learned - next time we'll a) call 911 ourselves since apparently the idiots that drove by and didn't stop gave the wrong address, b) wait with the victim, but not drive them anywhere just in case they oddly enough may have stolen the vehicle they just got in an accident with.

So quit laughing... we'll still do an occasional good deed, but we may ask next time for your license and registration.