your family home? My son went to Caleb’s to call the ambulance.”
The man nodded. “Once I get my wife and children home, I will come back to see if you need me.”
Ben agreed, but his attention was back on the vehicle.
He looked at the front of the car and frowned. There was so much damage. He didn’t see how she could have escaped injury; possibly she had internal bleeding. She’d have to go to the hospital. He flinched. He had lost his wife to a cancer that no one had been aware of until it was too late. Their unborn daughter had also perished. The hospital where they had died would forever be stamped in his memory. He never wanted to step inside one of those places again.
He looked again at the woman. It would be easier to decide what to do if the door weren’t in the way. If it even opened. He looked doubtfully at how the frame had been bent on impact. He had to try it, though. To his surprise, he was able to wrench the door open. It swung wide and hung at an odd angle, but he was already focused on the occupant of the car. She was so still. He wished he could see her legs better. He wondered if he should try and pull her from the vehicle but decided against it. He didn’t want to risk hurting her any more than she already was.
“Is she alive?” Caleb’s deep voice startled him. He’d been so wrapped up in his inspection that he hadn’t heard his neighbor approaching.
“Jah. I can’t tell how bad she’s hurt, but she’s alive.”
Caleb wrinkled up his nose. “What’s that smell?”
Ben froze. The distinct sharp odor of gasoline rose to his nostrils. Bending down, he saw the gas was dripping from her car. She must have punctured the line during the crash. He reversed his earlier decision. She might have internal injuries, but if the car exploded, she’d be dead.
“Let’s move her from the car,” Ben said.
The other man grunted in response. Between the two of them, they slowly maneuvered the woman from the vehicle. Ben surveyed her for any other signs of damage as he helped Caleb carry her across the street to his porch. There was blood on her left arm, but other than that and the cut on her cheek, she appeared to be whole.
He looked around. Some of the neighbors had emerged from their houses to see what was happening. “Stay back,” he yelled a warning. “There might be a gas leak.”
Some of them stayed where they were, although several went back into their homes, shooing their children ahead of them.
Sirens sounded in the distance. As they zoomed closer, Nathaniel ran up to him and stared down at the woman.
“Is she going to die, Dat?” The little boy’s voice trembled. It broke his heart to hear it. He wanted to say no, but he would never lie to his child. Nathaniel had already learned the hard truth of human frailty. Although Ben and his son did not speak of his wife’s illness, he knew that Nathaniel had not forgotten the agony of watching his mother waste away and die. How could he forget it?
“I don’t know, Nathaniel. It’s in Gott’s hands. We have called the ambulance, that’s all we can do.”
The ambulance arrived. Ben waved at them to pull up the driveway. A police car pulled up behind the accident, red and blue lights flashing. The paramedics jumped down from their vehicle and rushed to the young woman lying on the porch. With calm efficiency, they started checking her vital signs.
“You shouldn’t move someone from a vehicle if you don’t know the extent of their injuries,” one of the paramedics informed Caleb and Ben.
Caleb grunted, unimpressed. Ben felt it was up to him to give an explanation.
“Jah, I know that. We smelled gasoline and feared it was too dangerous to leave her in the car.”
He watched as they lifted the still-unconscious woman onto a stretcher. Something about her pale face surrounded by wavy light-brown hair tugged at him. Almost like a memory, but hazy. Hopefully they would find some identification in the car and be able to notify her next of kin. His mind again traveled to the hospital where he had spent the last day of his Lydia’s life. It had seemed to him such a place should have been filled with warmth to comfort patients but was instead filled with Englisch technology. The idea of the stranger waking up alone in such a place bothered him, although he told himself that it wasn’t his concern.
He had done his part. He had made sure the emergency personnel were called. She was being well cared for. If she had family, they would soon be with her.
It didn’t help. What if she didn’t have family?
He couldn’t get the horrified expression on her face as she barreled down the hill out of his mind. Had she run into the tree on purpose to avoid the buggy?
The police were finishing up their inspection of the car. The tow truck arrived and hooked it up.
“Not that she’ll be able to do anything with this,” the driver remarked, chomping on a piece of gum. “I’m guessing the insurance adjuster will say it’s a total loss.”
“Why’d she crash? Did you see what happened?” an officer asked Ben.
He shook his head. “I saw her coming down the hill. It looked like she couldn’t stop, but that’s all I know.”
The officers finished up, and within twenty minutes the street was quiet again.
But Ben remained unsettled. Something about the situation continued to eat at him.
“Dat. I found this.” Nathaniel held up something for his father to inspect. It was a cell phone. Ben’s brow furrowed. It had probably slipped from the woman’s pocket when he and Caleb had carried her to the porch. The Amish didn’t use cell phones, not even in their businesses. Their bishop allowed them to have a landline phone in their businesses if it was necessary, but cell phones were considered excessive. But from his interactions with them he knew that the Englisch relied heavily on their devices.
It gave him an excuse to check up on her, just to make sure she was all right. The thought made him pause. It wasn’t like him to be so concerned about what was happening in the Englisch world. He had a few Englisch friends he’d made through his work as a carpenter, but he avoided any deep attachments. He had learned his lesson the hard way. He couldn’t rely on others to protect his family. And technology couldn’t always help. He had lost his wife and their unborn daughter when Lydia had been struck with cancer, and no amount of Englisch technology or medicine had been able to save them. All he had left was his son and he was determined to be careful.
He would check on her, he decided, then he would leave. His conscience would be eased, and he would never have to see the woman again.
His mind flashed back to the memory of the driver’s panicked face before she had hit the tree. She had obviously been aware of the danger. He couldn’t recall any of the telltale clues that she was trying to stop.
His eyes flashed to the tree in question. The bark had been scraped off in several places. He could see bits and pieces of it littering the ground. Although the mangled car was gone, he doubted he’d forget the image anytime soon.
Why hadn’t she stopped?
