I had stopped to have supper on my trip from the eastern portion of the country out to the west coast. As I sat, waiting for the meal I had just ordered, I was looking out of the window of the restaurant that was attached to the truck stop where I had parked my pickup truck and trailer. A fairly heavy set younger man was walking around the building accompanied by a lady that seemed to be about his age and a young, 7 or 8 year old, girl. I surmised that this was likely a husband and wife, along with their daughter. I had noticed a flash of light reflected from her glasses, and I wanted to get a better look at her as she drew near. She appeared to be favoring one leg, possibly as the result of a twisted ankle or something minor like that.
The restaurant I was seated in had two walls of windows, and I had noticed them first through the west windows. By the time they got around to the front I watched the lady walk all along the front wall until she passed my position just where the windows ended. She was wearing glasses that appeared to have a pretty decent minus prescription in the lenses and I hoped that the family would come into the restaurant. When they hadn’t appeared after I had waited what I considered a reasonable period of time I decided I would make a trip out to the washrooms which were located behind the convenience store area.
The man was standing in line at the cashier, loaded down with purchases from the convenience store. The girl and the lady were nowhere to be found, and I felt strongly that they were in the bathroom. I quickly used the men’s room, and I could hear conversation coming from the ladies. I timed my exit so that I came out of the men’s just as the ladies room door opened and sure enough they exited from the ladies. As we walked down the hall together I had gotten a better look at the front of her glasses and I was able to confirm that they were indeed a strong minus prescription. The lenses were brought forward in the frame so that there was more than the normal portion of flat fronted lens sticking out to the front. The frames looked good on her, even though they were the style that was popular about 5 years ago – rectangular plastic with wide temples, She was of native American heritage, with the typical high cheekbones, and her glasses nestled nicely into her face, as there seemed to be a bit of a recess at the bridge of her nose that allowed her glasses to sit very close to her face. This way the strength of her lenses was well hidden by the wide temples. And the bottom of the frame almost rested on her cheeks. She had long dark hair that hung down in such a way that I could not get any idea of the amount of cut in that she had. All I could tell was that this was a pretty nearsighted young lady.
I had to go back to my meal, which was now waiting for me in the restaurant. I ate quickly, and then made an excuse to run out to my vehicle to get a digestive pill. When I was in the parking lot I noticed the man walking around what is called a long combination vehicle. LCV’s are allowed on very few roads back east – the New York Thruway is one, but I can’t really be sure of any other roads where they are used. They are mostly 2 standard sized trailers that are hooked up with a tandem dolly and are pulled by one power unit. Or in some cases they are 3 shorter trailers hooked up with 2 single axle dollies and are pulled by one truck. They are mostly seen in the western parts of Canada, along with the north western parts of the USA. To drive these units the driver has to have a really good safety record, and he is trained a bit more than a normal driver. The pay is slightly better so it makes a bit of a difference to a family man’s paycheck. There are quite a number of husband and wife teams out on the roads nowadays, but for some reason my gut feeling told me that she was not a driver. It wasn’t just because of her strong glasses, but more because of her demeanor, as I have seen a number of ladies that wore similarly strong glasses that drove truck. I had taken note of the truck number, but hadn’t been able to read the number on the back trailer. I figured it didn’t really matter much, as I would not be able to catch up with them.
I returned to finish my coffee and take my pill, then I paid for my meal. I had noticed their truck pull out of the lot and head down the westbound ramp a few minutes earlier so I would likely only be about 5 minutes behind them. I pulled my truck and car trailer out onto the westbound freeway and headed west myself.
I did manage to catch up with, and pass a couple of LCV’s from the same company, but the tractor number was not the same. About 2 hours later I was thinking that it was about time for me to head for a motel when I got closer to the next city. As I rolled along I saw an LCV in front of me, and as I watched I saw a car come through the median, heading directly for the LCV. It impacted just into the tandem wheels at the rear of the front trailer, and I could see the trailer tip up as it passed over and crushed the car. I didn’t think it would go over, but the trailer was starting to tilt, and as I watched it went over onto its side. By this time I had put on my 4 ways and had come to a stop and I watched as the trailer pulled the tractor over with it. I immediately dialed 911 and told the operator of the accident. I ran to the truck, as I knew the driver of the car had to be dead. The windshield had popped out of the cab of the tractor, and the driver was pinned in by the air bag. He was unconscious, and I managed to pull him from the truck and lay him on the dry grass at the shoulder. Then I went back in for the little girl. The mother had protected her as well as she could, and other than being badly shook up she seemed to be all right so I pulled her out. The mother had taken the brunt of the force as it appeared that she and her daughter had been lying in the bunk, She had been tossed around, and I checked her for broken bones, but she was also unconscious, so I managed to gently pull her out and I got her to the grass shoulder where I laid her beside her husband. Then I went back into the truck to check to see if there was anything or anyone else, as a lot of drivers travel with pets these days. The cab was empty, but as I looked around I spotted a pair of glasses and I scooped them up and put them in my pocket.
I hadn’t noticed the sirens, but there was an ambulance and a police car there by the time I exited from the cab. The police officer asked me if I was the driver, and I told him I wasn’t, but had witnessed the accident. With that he was a little curt and asked me to move away from the accident scene. I went back to my truck, as it was easy to determine that there was not going to be any traffic going by for quite a while. They cut the driver that had caused the accident out of his car, and it was pretty obvious he, or she was dead. Finally, after 3 more police cars had shown up the officer who had been a little curt with me came back to my pickup and asked me to come up to his car with him. He actually apologized for being so abrupt with me and said that he had not realized that I had been the one to pull the driver and his family out. I gave him my information, and he took my witness statement. He was even good enough to call a local motel for me so that I would be able to get a room for the night. By this time I was really quite tired.
Because of the death the road was going to be closed for hours while the police measured and investigated. Traffic had been detoured, but there was still a pretty good backup, of which I was at the front of the line. After what seemed like forever they managed to move some of the police and fire trucks away so that the police could direct the traffic that was patiently waiting around the accident by having us almost go into the median.
I found the motel, and the room was nice and clean. I managed to go right to sleep, although my mind was more on the glasses that were in my pocket than anything else. The next morning when I woke up I took the time to examine the glasses very carefully. They were well worn, and they had the smell of perfume on them. As I had suspected the wide temples had hidden the edge thickness nicely, and they had to have been better than half an inch thick. I tried them on, but could not manage to make my eyes overcome the blur, so I knew that they had to be somewhere in the mid-teens for a prescription. And there was considerable astigmatism correction as well because objects grew taller and then wider as I rotated them. By now I had a bad conscience. This poor girl was lying in a hospital bed, blind without her glasses. I wanted to keep them in the worst way, but I wasn’t heartless enough to do that to her.
I unhooked my truck from the car trailer and told the motel owner I was out of the room, but wanted to leave my trailer while I went over to the hospital to see how the people I had pulled from the wreck last night were doing. He was fine with that, and he gave me directions to the hospital. I was hungry, and it was almost lunchtime, so I stopped at a restaurant for breakfast before I went to the hospital. When I got there I told the receptionist that I had pulled 3 people from a wreck the previous evening and I wanted to check on their condition. The receptionist was a little hesitant to give me any information, but finally told me that the husband had been released earlier that morning, the little girl was fine, but the mother had some internal bleeding so they were keeping her in a little longer. Just as I was about to tell her that I would like to see the mother the father and the daughter came through the door. The receptionist spotted him and called him over to talk to me. He thanked me for my assistance, and my concern, and as I talked with him I noticed that the little girl was now wearing a pair of glasses. They looked new, and I asked him if his daughter had just gotten glasses.
“We just picked them up this morning. I guess Nicole has inherited her mother’s poor eyesight. But it is a good thing that Nicole and Brianna were riding in with me to pick up their new glasses, because we searched the truck this morning before I went to the optician’s and Brianna’s glasses were nowhere to be found. She is helpless without them, and it always takes a couple of weeks before she can get a new pair.” The father said.
“It seems to have been a really good thing that your wife and daughter had both ordered their new glasses.” I replied.
“But if they hadn’t been riding with me then my wife would still have had her old glasses. I had better get up to see her, and give her the new ones so that she can see again.” He told me.
“Well, I guess I had better get going. I just wanted to make sure everyone was ok.” I said.
“Come on up to see Brianna with us. I am sure she would like to thank you for your help.” He suggested.
“I am not going to make it very far tonight anyway. I might as well go up with you for a minute or two.” I said.
I went up to Brianna’s room with them, and watched while he took her new glasses out of the case and placed them gently onto her face. She had chosen a little larger frame, more like the cat eyed ones that are in style these days. The lenses looked even thicker than the ones in the frames that were in my pocket and I figured that because of the way the larger frames were going to have to sit on her face these lenses had to be a bit stronger. They were held away from the bridge of her nose by the way they sat directly on her high cheekbones, and I knew that these glasses would annoy her to no end by the way the sweat would build up at the point where the lenses rested on her cheekbones. She would have been a lot wiser to have chosen a wire rectangular frame, and forgotten about style, but I knew that she would learn this very shortly.
I took my leave, her old glasses burning a hole in my pocket as I left. They were now going to become a treasured addition to my collection, and I no longer felt any twinges of guilt about keeping them.
Specs4ever August 2015.
PS, this is NOT a true story, so no comments about my heartlessness in keeping her old glasses are required.
https://vision-and-spex.com/an-accidental-encounter-t799.html