It is with a shaky hand and a chill on my spine that I type this post. Yesterday was a day unlike every other. I have to tell you what happened and what it means to me today, while it is still fresh.
On Tuesday morning, I set out on my way to Reading, Pa from Brooklyn at about 10:45 am. It was a clear and sunny day and once I reached the New Jersey turnpike, traffic was moderate with a high ratio of trucks to cars as usual for this highway. My mom called right before I crossed the border into Pennsylvania and I told her I would be arriving in just over an hour at around 1:45 pm. Just a few minutes later, I was buzzing along in the left lane at about 75 mph, (yes, over the speed limit, but moving with traffic,) when I was distracted by something off to the side of the road. "Is that a... body?" I thought to myself. I looked back to the road and found myself facing the tail end of a semi with his brake lights on. I slammed on the brakes and skidded and screetched towards the crash, thinking only, "oh my god i'm going to hit this truck i can't believe i'm going to hit this truck i'm going to trash my car oh my god i can't believe this." My car started to veer to the right as I came within 3 or 4 feet of the back of the truck and I lost control of the wheel, swerving into the right lane where an suv or van appeared briefly in my rear view mirror only feet behind me. I regained control of the wheel and pulled onto the shoulder stopping just short of hitting a tractor trailer parked on the side of the road. A woman ran by my car on her way to the body by the roadside. I sat for a moment stunned and then realized the radio was blaring away at top volume. I punched it off and jumped out of the car with my cell phone. "Call 911," i told myself and started towards the body only a hundred feet or so from where I'd landed. The roar of traffic and the wind made me realize I wouldn't hear the 911 operator so I got back in my car and told the operator where I was. "Are you calling about the person who was hit by the truck?" he asked. "Yes." "We're on our way," he told me. I hung up and burst into sobs, realizing that I had very nearly been killed or at least in the worst accident of my life. I called Riff who listened to me cry and consoled me, and then I hung up and headed to the group of people now gathered around the victim. One person was doing compressions, while another person did mouth to mouth. He had his shirt off, later I realized he was trying to stop the bleeding. I could see that the victim was a woman, with gray hair, gold rings on a bloody hand, jeans and black socks. One of her shoes lay sadly on the roadside several feet away. A man in front of me kept turning away from the scene shaking his head. Another man leaned against a pick-up truck with his hands on his knees, his skin turned grey. I asked if anyone knew what had happened, no one did. The paramedics arrived quickly and put a neck brace on the woman and transferred her to a board so they could lift her onto a stretcher. The person doing compressions kept working until the paramedics transferred her to the stretcher, but they didn't take over and they didn't speed away. I saw things I didn't want to see and I knew she was probably not going to make it.
The strangest thing was the impression I had for the fleeting moment that I saw her body alone on the side of the road. She looked like a homeless person sprawled out sleeping and I couldn't shake the feeling that she had chosen to lie there on the cold cement of the overpass. Even when I was calling the police, I had a feeling that she didn't need our help because her condition was voluntary.
I stayed for a bit longer, but once she was in the ambulance I felt that I should leave. There was a cop interviewing the woman parked behind my car who turned out to be an EMT in training (I think.) She told the officer that the woman was gone. "She'll get to the hospital, but it will be too late to open her up." The officer continued to ask questions and the woman had me pour a bottle of water over her bloody hands to rinse them.
I left the scene still shaken and was relieved when I pulled into my parent's driveway. I felt the strangest feelings about my close call and this person I didn't know who I had witnessed in her most vulnerable, most desperate moments. I felt connected to her and but a sliver of a moment away from being like her. It was hard to go about my mundane tasks of the day. As I had planned to leave my car with my parents, my mom was going to drive me back to New York and spend the night, but obligations had come up so I told her to drop me at the bus station. It felt safe to ride the bus and gave me time to think about what had happened. I had looked online for news, but all I found was that the accident had closed the highway and backed up traffic for two hours behind me. That night, back in Brooklyn, I found the following:
Investigators say a woman killed on Interstate 78 in Northampton County yesterday, committed suicide.
The coroner says the woman from Sellersville, Bucks County was hit by a tractor trailer when she jumped into the westbound lanes of 78 at Route 412.
Today I found this update:
BETHLEHEM | A tractor-trailer struck and killed a 54-year-old Bucks County woman who stepped into its path Tuesday on Interstate 78, state police said.
Kathleen L. Bulla, of Sellersville, was hit about 12:30 p.m. in the highway's west lanes, near a bridge just past the Hellertown exit. She was rushed to a hospital but died shortly before 3 p.m., said Capt. Robert J. Mahady of the state police at Belfast.
I don't really believe in this kind of stuff, but now it has happened to me: I knew that this woman had killed herself! Without thinking it could be true or understanding what it meant, I had felt strongly that she had chosen to be there and did not want help. Later on the bus, I had even visualized her standing on the side of the road and throwing herself into front of the truck. I didn't consciously believe that this was the case, but I knew I had to find out who she was and what happened to her. When I read that she had killed herself it all came together and I realized that my feelings had been some kind of intuitive comprehension in that singular moment. The fact that I came within a split second of terrible accident myself might have something to do with my deep emotional response. Folks, I don't know. I just have to say that I have never experienced anything like this before.
Eventually, I felt angry. Kathleen L. Bulla of Sellersville didn't just decide to end her life, she chose to take a few of us along for the ride. The truck driver who will carry her with him along every highway from now on, the woman doing compressions on a mangled body. The guy with his shirt off, desperate and frustrated. The 20 year old EMT in training with blood all over her hands. And what if I hadn't made it? Kathleen, it was a close call. It really was.
I just found this on mcall.com:
Kathleen's obituary
Beyond anger what I mostly feel is pity, because I know that this didn't have to happen and I am sorry that it did. I don't understand why I was involved or why I made it out unscathed or whether it was all random chance and my feeling of intuition a delusion. I am just glad to be here and to be alive today. I am reminded that everything can change in an instant whether it is our choice or is thrust upon us.
As for this person who entered my existence with a violent act and caused me much panic, distress and sadness:
I forgive you. I wish that I had held your hand, Kathleen, there on the side of the highway, because then you might know somehow that we are all the same, my flesh and your flesh and the ground beneath you and the blue sky above. And all the pain and wretchedness of your existence but a fleeting moment. Rest in peace, Kathleen L. Bulla of Sellersville, Pennsylvania. I hardly knew ye.
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