It's not every day that you get to save a life. Tonight, i saved two. Here's a recount of an eventful night.
After supper with Png at Bukit Batok, I was on the way to sending GB home via the PIE. As soon as we got on the highway, I saw a car tyre lying on the road shoulder to my left, and a lot of smoke further up ahead. I slowed down as I approached the accident scene, and saw a red Suzuki Swift with the front all smashed in and a silver truck parked beside it. I found it strange that a truck would be on the right-most lane of the highway.
As I got nearer, I could make out a silhouette of a woman lying on the steering wheel in the Swift, and saw that the engine was on fire. That was when I realised the seriousness of the situation, and felt that I had to help immediately.
I pulled up on the road shoulder, and a black Toyota Vios followed suit in front of me. Mr Vios got out of his car at the same time as I did, and announced to me, "I'm calling the police right now." I nodded and replied, "Good work", then turned towards the Swift. I saw the silver truck drive away from the Swift, and onto the road shoulder a good distance ahead of the Vios.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came a silver taxi speeding towards the Swift and couldn't manage to swerve away in time, consequently colliding into the rear of the Swift with great force and eventually bumped it a few metres forward. Now the Swift was lying diagonally across lanes 1 and 2, and I feared for the additional damage the woman might have suffered from that heavy impact. The silver taxi then headed over to the road shoulder, behind the silver truck.
As the flames from the Swift's engine began to grow more intense, I strode over and saw that the driver's door was ajar. A chinese woman in a white tank top and grey shorts sat with her legs out of the car. She was obviously in a daze as I went over to check on her. As I got her out of the car, Mr Vios jogged over and I delegated to him the task of helping the woman to safety away from the burning vehicle.
There was another person in the vehicle, an indian man in a black T-shirt and khaki shorts, who was sprawled face-down on the driver's seat, and his legs were bent at an awkward under the front passenger's seat. I hurried over to the passenger's side and tried to open the door, but it was jammed, so I exerted as much force as I could muster, and managed to pry the door open, feeling some metal parts bending, and damaging the hinges in the process. I then checked on the indian and he responded with weak moans of agony and muttering, "i die, i die.." He had abrasions on his legs and his face was a bloody mess, but at least he was still alive, I thought to myself. I applied pressure to his back and neck, thinking that if he had injured his spinal cord, he'd probably scream out in pain right now. Concluding that it would be alright to tug him out of the car without running the risk of causing further damage to him, I then attempted to lift him out of the car, but he was jammed in the small space between the seat and the bottom of the dashboard.
With his weight now leaning on me, I couldn't get at the underseat clutch to push the seat backwards, so I shouted out to GB for help, who was in the midst of a crowd of bystanders observing from across the highway. GB rushed over with a malay guy and they helped to support the indian while I slid the passenger seat back. GB and the malay guy grabbed the upper half of the man as I lifted his legs, at which point he repeatedly groaned, "Pain, pain!" I muttered under my breath, "Shut up.. You're lucky to be alive.." As we carried him across the highway, the smoke and the smell of burning rubber became more intense, half-choking me as my eyes started to tear.
Upon seeing her battered friend lying on the road shoulder, incessantly calling out "Mama.. Mama..", the female casualty hobbled over anxiously and threw herself on him, meekly calling out "dear, dear" in the process. It wasn't long before more bystanders started gathering around us, casting their opinions on their interpretations of how the accident began. I overheard someone saying that he was the taxi driver who had collided into the rear of the Swift, and he was profusely apologising and claiming that he didn't have enough time to react. He sounded sorry enough, so I didn't bother to direct any accusations towards him. I also found out from the truck driver, who in the beginning had stopped by the Swift, that he was looking to help the woman out, but panicked and drove away from the danger when he saw flames emerging from the engine. I eased his guilt by saying that it was a normal and justifiable reaction.
An ambulance arrived at the scene and tended to the injured couple, with one paramedic particularly frustrated by the woman's inability to cooperate - she was turning hysterical because her boyfriend was in bad shape and wasn't responding to her cries. Fire engines arrived after a while, and the fire-fighters only managed to put out the flames in the engine after about 20 minutes.
The police finally arrived about 45 minutes after the ambulance, and I was rather bemused to see the unceremonious manner of their arrival. A police officer on a motor-bike skidded and crashed as he approached the Swift and clutched his left arm while writhing in pain. This is lame and embarrassing, I thought. He was rushed onto a police car which promptly sped off to avoid further ridicule from the bystanders, who began passing crude remarks about police efficiency in general. The paramedics approached the girlfriend of Mr Vios for help, saying that she was the only female around, and that they needed someone to help strap the hysterical woman to her seat in the ambulance to prevent her from hindering them in administering first aid to her indian boyfriend, to which Ms Vios willingly obliged.
After a while the ambulance left, and traffic cones were set up to direct traffic away from the accident scene. A white Subaru WRX drove towards the scene a bit too quickly and incensed an aged police officer, who halted the WRX and dished out a proper telling-off to the driver. A female cop came over for eyewitness accounts, and all the other bystanders pointed to me, saying I was here earlier than them, and that I had been the one who rescued the couple of out the car. A few people came up to me with praise and thanks, which made me blush a bit. I gave my summary of events to the cop and was allowed to leave.
Along the way back, GB, too, commended me for being brave, and confessed that he was initially too afraid to approach the burning car because he thought it was about to explode. He asked me how I managed to find the courage to rush in to help those people, and I replied that it wasn't courage that motivated me - it was quite simply the fear of not being able to sleep in peace had I not got those people out of there in time. I also reassured him that he had been brave in rushing over to help me with the indian man, and that he was a true hero for his involvement. We slapped high-fives when he alighted, and I drove home feeling satisfied with what I had done.
I was a hero for a day, or in this case, for a night, and it felt good. =)
