
An Accident No One Talked About - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/fashion/modern-love-the-accident-no-one-talked-about.html
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bitcharmer
Few years ago I witnessed a traffic accident in which a 16yo boy riding a
motorcycle died. I was the first to get to him trying to assess his condition
and help. Those were his last moments. There was a lot of blood and I was
helpless. I did my best but witnessed him dying anyway. I was 32 years old. I
never knew this boy. Nevertheless this was a life changing experience. I'll
never forget this neither will I forget having face his poor parents who
wanted to hear about their son's final moments from the man who was there.
This experience will never stop haunting me. I can easily imagine how
devastating it can be for someone who's lost their friend. Especially when
you're a kid. If someone from your family experienced this, please don't go
the "let's not bring this up" way. That doesn't help.

~~~
cyberferret
The linked story and yours are both harrowing. But it has spurred me to
action. Many years ago, my younger sister, a police officer, was off duty and
just driving her car into town when she saw a car plough into another in front
of her. She jumped out of her car and raced over to the drivers door, where
she saw that the driver had a gaping wound in his neck and was bleeding out.

My sister hates the sight of blood, and faints when getting a needle, but to
this day I don't know how she did what she did, which was to reach in and
clamp her hand around his neck to try and stem the bleeding, while trying to
talk to him. His wife was in the passenger seat, relatively uninjured but
screaming hysterically at her husband's condition. My sister said that she
looked into the guys eyes while she tried to talk to him and reassure him -
she said the look he gave her was one of 'pleading sadness', and she watched
while in less than a minute the life went out of him right there and then.

She only ever told me the story once, and our family has one of those stupid
'don't talk about it' rules, which after reading this, I intend to break. She
seems fine to this day and doesn't show any outward signs of it affecting her,
but next time I get the chance, I will see if she wants to talk more about it.

~~~
lomnakkus
Be sure to tell your sister that she's a hero.

~~~
moron4hire
Most people who have been through such a thing would very much like to avoid
having someone call then a hero.

~~~
lomnakkus
Not having been through the experience, I'm not sure what you mean. Can you
elaborate?

FTR, my sentiment was really just about reminding people you care about that
they are, in fact, appreciated.

EDIT: ... and there's hardly enough vomit in the world, is there? I'm sorry,
that sounded _absurdly_ cheesy, but it actually does matter.

~~~
moron4hire
In English, the word "hero" can mean two slightly different things. As you're
using it, it's a person who has performed some great feat in service to
another, especially if that feat involves sacrifice. A hero in this sense is
performing a selfless act.

But that meaning is a relatively modern extension of the original idea of
heroes being "just" people who perform great feats. If you read the great
epics, any people the heroes end up saving are often incidental. The heroic
acts are for the glory of the heroes, a distinctly selfish act.

It's a bit difficult to explain, if you don't know the feeling. There's a
reason I said "been through" rather than "done". Things can happen so quickly
that you don't really apply rational thought to what you're doing. And as with
all such situations, we tend to post-hoc rationalize what we did. So for a
heroic[selfless] act to not be a heroic[selfish] act, it must be done solely
for the good of those involved, not for any praise or glory for the "hero". It
can make the act feel meaningless to receive praise for it.

You're often the _clearest_ eye-witness to the event, but that doesn't mean
you're objectively _reliable_. At best, you don't know why you did any
particular thing. You might say "anyone would have done it." It feels bad to
receive praise for a common act.

At worst, you second guess everything. You worry about the mistakes more than
anything "right" you did. What if you hadn't hesitated for what felt like an
eternity (when outside observers would probably say you sprung into action
immediately)? What if you hadn't forgotten to carry your pocket knife today,
so you could have cut the seat belt into a tourniquet (despite seatbelts being
extremely difficult to actually cut). What if you hadn't pressed so hard
during CPR that you broke their ribs (except CPR done correctly is very likely
to break ribs)[0]? In emergency situations, the odds are against you, so even
if you do absolutely everything right, you're probably not going to "succeed".
It _definitely_ feels bad to receive praise when you think you've screwed up.

That's why you'll see so many people say they "just want to move on." It's
easier to bury the issue than deal with any one of those things, and it's
highly likely the person is going through all of them. The most thanks someone
will want is to see the person they tried to help walk away happy and safe; a
thanks from that person will be sincere and will feel real. From anyone else
who wasn't involved, it will only serve as a reminder of something the person
would rather forget.

People don't want to receive praise when they don't feel like they deserve it.
People feel like they deserve praise when they've done hard work and they've
done it well. You want to thank a cop or EMT or doctor or search-and-rescue
volunteer? Don't thank them for that one event over which they probably feel
conflicted. Thank them for their choice to join their profession and their
choice to continue to wake up every day and go back to it.

Incidentally, that's also why you probably shouldn't thank a soldier "for
their service." You don't know why they joined. Some people have joined not
out of a sense of service to country, but a sense of desperation to get out of
a bad situation at home. And once they have joined, they can't easily un-join.
Continuing to show up to be a soldier is not a daily choice. Or maybe they've
joined for all the "right" reasons and they believe every day that their
choice was the right one, the vast majority of military personnel are in
support--not combat--positions, and that person might feel they are not
deserving of praise because they are not in danger. Thanking a soldier for
their service--especially if you're a random person on the street and only
know they are a soldier because they are wearing a uniform--could be reminding
them of lots of things outside of their control.

~~~
lomnakkus
Thank you for that comment. I haven't fully digested it yet, but thank you.

------
danso
I've never had a personal tragedy like the scope of the author's, but her
essay hit me nonetheless in reminding me of all the times I've avoided
"tricky" topics with friends and family, and how in retrospect, this avoidance
contributed to relationships drifting apart over the years. I was both happy
how the author's bravery led to an eventual reconciliation, and sad thinking
about relationships that I didn't prioritize enough.

------
bootload
_“Could you just start at the beginning and tell me everything?”_

Nobody talks about death, especially violent death. This quote stands out the
most. Do you want to know why people who have been there don't talk? It's the
interruptions, the funny looks and having to answer _stupid_ questions. So if
you are in the company of someone and they talk about it, it's probably
because they trust you. Let them talk it out to the end, interruption free.

When I do talk, it's quietly to mates who were there and those who have been
in similar situations. There is no great divide in understanding, no
interruptions and plenty of trust.

------
BrandoElFollito
Incidentally this article made me think about people who save other's life,
sometimes at personal risk. I am not thinking about big hero - like actions
(which are of course fantastic) but rather Joe passing by and somehow saving
Bob's life.

I had two cases like this in my life. In one of them I saw a car rolling over
on a highway and stopped to see if the driver was fine (alive, actually). He
was there, breathing, and there was petrol all over the place. I got him out
before the car shared to burn (quite slowly, nothing like in movies). I did
not even think once about my safety, I did not think about anything, actually.
There was strictly nothing heroic in what I did because brain was not involved
at all.

I wonder if others have this as well - for me a hero is someone who realizes
what he or she can loose and despite this take the risk to help someone. This
was not my case at all and would not be either if my children were at stake,
for instance.

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ElDji
Thanks for this post. It was mind opening for me.

I witnesses the death of my dad two years ago, and experienced overleming
emotions since then and depression like symptoms.

I choose to stick to "Won't never talk about what I saw", but this seems
really not the good path.

------
tajen
I wonder if it's the same talking to a psy as to a relative. It's much less
grave, but years talking to various psychologists didn't damp by emotions
about my first break-up, especially because they don't want to talk about the
past, they only want to talk about the future.

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kwhitefoot
That was hard to read. Must have been harder to write, and even harder to do.

I hope I can make use of it.

~~~
mcguire
I hope you don't have the opportunity.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Me too! But what my clumsy choice of words was supposed to convey was a desire
to be able to act as well if such circumstances ever arise.

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longtimegone
Many many years ago, when I was one and a half years old, I had a brother who
was three. He had red hair and a bright smile (I've seen the pictures) and a
curious nature. Inexplicably, he slipped from everyone's sight one day and
fell into the river and drowned. The resulting silent implosion in my family
led to generations of pain and guilt and alcoholism and silence. Each parent,
each sibling, suffering in guilty silence, and locking away their emotional
selves from those that need it. The silence solves nothing folks, take it from
me, it solves nothing.

------
markc
I have a horrific road accident from 10 years ago seared into my memory.
Shared it on this reddit thread along with 100's of other stories of witness
to trauma:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9jsz6/tonight_i_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9jsz6/tonight_i_gave_cpr_to_a_dead_girl_it_was_pretty/)

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dead10ck
Am I the only one who was extremely confused by the writing? I think the whole
effect was just lost on me, because I went from thinking her brother was the
one who died, to thinking he was the driver, to finally getting to the part
where she actually says explicitly that he was the other boy in the road.

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nomadic_09
That was real hard to read. I can kind of relate to how Alex felt.

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13of40
Sorry - nerd in me but: He could have either gone straight or swerved right.
He couldn't have swerved left?

~~~
oftenwrong
It seems more like a rationalisation. In the brief moment between seeing the
boy and swerving it is unlikely that he had the time or situational awareness
to consider his options. By believing that he would have killed a boy anyway,
regardless of his choice, he avoids judging that he could have made the wrong
choice, and so he avoids crushing doubt and regret.

~~~
tmd83
He might well be rationalizing but this man doesn't seem to be without
crushing regret.

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dsfyu404ed
Well this thread did a good job at making all the people with an irrational
hate for cars come out of the woodwork.

