Watching a stranger die.

Last April, I went out for a drive along a scenic road next to a river. The speed limit was 40, I was in my dads Prius. I had originally planned to turn off a road roughly a mile in and turn towards home, but I wasn't paying attention to the road signs and missed my turn. I wasn't terribly worried, so I carried on the road for roughly another 5 miles before I was following an old Dodge truck going roughly 25 mph. It was too dangerous to pass him (and illegal), so I slowed down and waited for him to turn off at the next safe spot for him to pull over, which was in 500 feet. He pulls over, and lets me and one other car pass, before he suddenly goes into the lane of oncoming traffic (there was none) as fast as possible, going straight over a cliff at roughly 60 mph and into a tree in somebodies front yard. I immediately pull over, slide down the cliff, and find the drivers head sticking outside the windshield on the passenger side. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, and had a heart attack when he pulled over. It's unclear if he was dead before he hit the tree.

Unfortunately, his body was on top of the passenger, who luckily is still alive and conscious, but is now coming to the realization that his obese friend and the crushed engine has him pinned, and he can't breathe. I tell him not to stop talking to me, because I'll know if he's still breathing if he's talking. The door is jammed shut, and in order for me to open the door, I have to put both my feet on the side of the truck and the only place I can get enough leverage is in the shattered window. I now have cuts on my hand at this point, but I'm closer to extricating this person in need. By this time, a neighbor has come out, and helped me pull the corpse out of the truck, and cuts the seatbelt of the passenger. The passenger then falls out of the truck, and much to his dismay, has a broken ankle. We tell him to lie on the ground where it is clean, and free of debris. During the ten minute wait for the emergency services to arrive, I ask the owner of the house if I can wash the blood off my hands, and when I come back outside, a first responder is just showing up, and I tell her that the one surviving passenger is concussed and has a broken ankle. Then a fire truck shows up, which isn't entirely necessary at this point. I had already removed the key from the ignition and put it on the opposite side of the truck on the bed. There was no smoke or fire. By this time, the first responder is helping the passenger, and the fire fighters are trying to see if the driver is alive, but he was already purple by this time. The police officer asks for my statement, my name and phone number, and tells me I can leave now. I leave immediately.

Now that I think about it, it was stupid of me to leave before and ambulance arrives, where they can address my cuts and inform me about what kind of risks I have for this blood exposure. So I go home, call my dad who is at work, and he tells me I should go to the ER, which is twenty minutes from my house by highway. When I get to the ER, the front desk takes me in immediately to get my vitals taken, where I find that my blood pressure and heart rate are roughly 3 times higher than normal, and have me talk to lower my vitals so I don't need to be shocked. They send me back to the waiting room for 2 hours, before I'm given a tetanus shot, and a $297 bill.

Now it's a month and a half later, and at first I was doing fine. I felt completely fine and I was able to sleep just fine, and still am. But my biggest issue now, is I'm too scared to relax, or do things that don't give me constant brain stimulant. Just the other day, I painted a door in my house, and I let my mind wander, and led me to relive the event second by second. I used to go out hiking nearly every day until last week, where now I'm just too scared to go out where I could have the possibility of having my mind wander. It's frustrating. I have panic attacks every time I try to relax because of it.