Today at a school about fifteen minutes from mine, a group of cross country runners were struck by a truck. One of them died on the scene. She was a senior, just like me. Now there could be hope that she didn’t even see the truck coming, however that is not the case. The truck hit a car first, so it’s likely the group heard the impact of that but had only seconds to react. This kind of situation always impacts me of course but for some reason it’s just sticking. I think it’s because I was watching the news when they began talking about what happened. And at the time, only about 45 minutes had passed. Everything was live, maybe that made it more real.
I have this weird thing I do where when someone dies and it’s broadcasted, I go to their Instagram. If they’re public, I just look through their feed and try to absorb what kind of person they were. This poor girl that was killed, she had so many future plans. She was super active and had gone on some college tours. Even said she was looking forward to being apart of one of the colleges next year. Except she’ll never get to do that. She also had a post of how great 2019 was, not knowing that she’d barely get to experience 2020.
Seconds, that is all it took for her to just be gone. Seconds. It’s truly amazing to me that it takes so long for a life to be born, but it takes barely any time for a life to end.
And while the drivers actions are inexcusable, it was released that his adult son was killed in an accident just a couple of days ago. Was it horrific irony? Was he perhaps suicidal and hoped for a quick death? Was he drunk and grieving? Who knows.
The incident today happened in front of the high school. Students and staff were the first responders to the scene. Just think of all of the lives that were changed that split second. Life truly is a precious blessing.