I was dreading last week’s netball game – a 9.10 pm start. That’s too late to play sport!

It’s also too late to be finishing work, which is what the woman whom I ended up comforting as she lay amongst the wreck of her moped in the middle of a busy road had just finished doing.

What an incredible woman she was,  55 years old and scooting home from work she was hit by a car at an interesection and did some pretty bad damage to her leg.  I was one of the first on the scene and ended up doing my best to adminster some first aid.

Having done a first aid course, I felt compelled to stop. I was suprised by how shocked and upset I was on seeing the physical damage to the woman. I did not feel as though I was very helpful in the first few minutes (and these are usually the critical minutes).  Fortunately there were 2 other people there who were acting very sensibly and calmly and did all the right things.

After a few minutes I got my shit together enough to decide that there was some things I could do to be useful, so I did these, moved a car out of the way, directed traffic away from the accident, comforted the driver a little.  I then sat down in the middle of the road with the brave woman and another woman ( a nurse) who was doing a terrific job of caring for her.  After some time the ambulance arrived and she was taken to hospital.

I went home that evening and cried for my brother and my friend who weren’t so lucky years ago. Both who died (probably shivering and cold) on hard strip of bitumen.  I wished I could have been there to hold their hands.