Motor vehicle accident on suchandsuch interstate at the intersection of somethingoranother parkway.

We had just been stood down to assist police at a nearby restaurant and we were at the exit for suchandsuch interstate. Junior's driving. (I call him Junior because his father volunteers at the station on the same night and was a former chief). Traffic is heavy and we blare and honk our way through.

We get on scene to find a tractor-trailer (articulating lorry for you readers in NZ and the UK) diagonally across 2 lanes blocking traffic. I fear the worst. Once we pass the rig we see a white pickup truck, perpendicular to the lanes of traffic, sitting empty. A few other cars on the shoulder. Great! I LOVE it when my patients are walking around complaining of back and neck pain! We cruise past the pickup and pull over down the way.

As I get out and head towards the pickup, I see that it's pretty deformed in the front. I'm immediately approached by about 4 people who are all babbling at once.

"Who was in the truck?" I ask.

"They split! They're gone. They ran off" say all the bystanders.

Dang! Well, I better look at the truck so I get an idea of what to do if they come back.

It's an early model Ford Ranger Pickup. It's got a half empty case of Corona beer in the back, the other half are empty bottles in the front. The seat and floor are littered with the bottles and a mess of really bad Mexican pop CDs. The kind you hear in the local burrito place when the kids are running the shop. There's also an obviously deformed steering wheel, a broken seatback and two perfect stars on the windshield at head height. I don't see any blood or tissue on the windshield but it looks pretty rough.

About then, a man approaches me and says, "My wife...my wife is down the road in our car. She's in shock, I think."

Uh oh! "Was your car hit?" I ask while looking the guy over.

"Yes." comes the reply, "My wife was driving."

I look about 1/4 mile down the highway and there's a car at the side of the road. I signal to Jr., Put the husband in the back of the ambulance and we roll on down to the next wreck.

Lacerated livers?

Stay tuned...

--maddog