Real. Surreal.

I came upon the pictured 5-car collision on Highway 1 in Half Moon Bay literally 20 seconds after it happened. Apparently the Honda on the right was speeding and spun out of control and slammed into the Toyota on the left straight on. The driver of the Honda was instantly killed and the two passengers in the Toyota were badly injured and trapped in the metal wreck that minutes earlier was called a car. Miraculously, the other people involved walked away from their damaged cars unscathed.
I watched and prayed as the firetrucks and ambulances arrived to saves the lives of the people still trapped in the Toyota. A man was pulled from the passenger side, put onto a stretcher and given immediate attention only to be pronounced dead less than 20 minutes later and placed in a body bag. This man died right before my eyes. It was real. The woman in the driver's seat was completely trapped, but still alive. Over the course of the next half hour I watched as the firemen disassembled the car piece by piece so they could get her out. We were all shoo'd away from the accident scene just as they were making real progress to remove her, but she was confirmed to be alive.

On the ride home I kept thinking about how fragile our lives are. I thought about the "what ifs". What if we had driven just a little faster than we were? Could that have been us being airlifted away to the hospital in a helicopter? I thought about who those people were. Who was the driver and why was he driving so fast? Was he speeding for pure thrill or was he in a rush to get somewhere? Who were the man and woman in the other car? What was their relationship? Friends? Siblings? Married? What were they talking about when the collision occurred? Where were they going?

I found out later that afternoon that the two people in the Toyota were friends of friends of mine. It's strange to discover that we really all connected to each other some way. Their names are Cindy and Steve. They're from San Francisco and were dating. At the time of discussion Cindy was still alive, but her legs had been completely mangled in the wreck and had suffered damage to her spine as well.

My heart goes out to the victim's families and I am praying that Cindy makes it through this.