I guess Michael Jackson's son said his first word this week. It was "HELP!!!"

Anyway...This evening started out badly. We'd been thrift storing all day. I mean all day. We left the house at 11:30 and were just returning home at 5:30. We were at a stoplight at 58th and Kipling, which is less than a mile from our house. We were the second car in line in the far right lane. There was a big truck to the left of us, in the middle lane, stationary..stopped at the same light we were. The light was just about to turn green and all of the sudden we heard this tremendous *crash!!* The truck in the lane next to us rocketed back, we could tell he'd been hit *hard* from the front somehow, although he was stopped at the light. I jumped out of the car and ran up there, yelling at Mark to give me his phone. Oh.my.god.

A little red car had smashed into the stationary truck head on, after being t-boned by another big truck. The red car had two people in it that were completely freaking out. We could tell what had happened, the red car had turned from southbound to eastbound on a red light, and the traveling truck had turned on a green arrow from eastbound to northbound. So the two were making exact opposite turns in the same intersection at the same time. The traveling truck hit the car broadside which pushed the red car head on in the stationary truck. Are you following this? No? Well lucky for you I've drawn you a map. The black truck in the middle of the intersection is the "traveling" truck. It's pictured where it ended up. The black truck next to us, is the "stationary" truck. The red blob is the car, of course..pictured where it finally ended up.


See? Get it? Now take a gander at this mess:






It was so damn freaky. I didnt know what to do, no one did. I was the only one with a phone so I was busy talking to 911. (I was hoping Tom would answer). Seems like as soon as I hit "end" on the 911 call there were sirens coming from everywhere.

I was standing on the NE corner for a long time just watching. It was a little surreal before the cops got there. The people in the red car were just sitting in their car freaking out, you could tell the passenger was really injured, and trapped. They had their seatbelts on, I noticed..but it was an old car, no airbag. There were a lot of motorists standing around, but we were all almost dead silent...all you could hear were the sirens. The girl came out of the traveling black truck and started asking everyone around..."I had a green arrow, didnt I? Did you see I had an arrow?" Freaky!

I finally caught back up with Mark and we zoomed home and unloaded a days worth of wonderful thrift store finds. (Including 11 baqs of books..whee!) Daniel and I immediately jumped back in the car to go back over and see what was going on. (We were going to Payless anyway..really!) That's when I took the picture and talked to some more people standing around. The guy was still trapped in the red car. They were using the "jaws" and pretty soon you saw the door just *zing* over the car when they finally got it off. There must have been 35 people standing on the corner. "Did you see what happened? "Ooh, look at that.." They can't get that guy out." "Wow, I can't believe this."

I think the most unnerving thing of all, is where Mark and I were in relation to everything that happened. A few seconds here, a missed stoplight here...Fate...Faith...Chance...it's all part of what's in store for us. I am so grateful to be sitting here right now.