Friday, December 07, 2007

Dead Body, Much?

Well, here is a mid-day emergency post! I've had quite the morning! Hog-tie me to the sofa and lock the front door if I ever act like my life isn't interesting and decide go out in search of a non-mullet haircut in a new place.

Here's what happened:
I looked up the closest Supercuts and saw that it was in the Natomas area right near the Walmart. I had to return something anyway so I drove there and looked around for the Supercuts but didn't find it in the same shopping center as the Walmart. So I headed back out onto Truxel Blvd. and took a left hand turn. I was in the far left lane, and I had to cross 4 or 5 lanes of traffic in order to make the turn. Which means I really couldn't see what was around the corner until I was right up on it.

I was looking off into the distance, over to the side, everywhere trying to spot the Supercuts sign when my eye caught what I thought was a white plastic bag full of something laying directly in front of me on the road. In an instant I saw that it was actually a DEAD BODY in a white sweatshirt. I SLAMMED on the brakes and came within about 2 feet of running over this poor man.

I threw on my emergency blinkers, praying that a car wouldn't swoop around that corner behind me and smack into the back end of me, and ran out of the car towards the man. I stood there jumping up and down holding my hand to my mouth and ear in the universal sign for "Call 911, SOMEBODY" and then I knelt down to check this guy out.

He was laying face down, flat out on the pavement, and his face was seriously bashed in. He looked like he had been shot or hit by a car and there was flesh hanging everywhere and a TON of blood. There was a dollar bill laying by his side so I picked that up and held onto it and later gave it to the cops. By then the other people who had been right beside me turning in the other 3 lanes had pulled over and came running across all the lanes of traffic to join me. I was still kneeling and I noticed the guy was burbling blood and trying to breathe.

I rubbed his back a little bit and was patting him gently saying, "Don't move, buddy, don't try to roll over or lift your head, just lay there, okay?"

A man from one of the other cars came over and knelt down and kind of shoved me out of the way and started rubbing the man's back and saying, "Don't try to move, buddy!" I don't know why that should bother me at a time like this, but I was super annoyed by it.

Suddenly there were tons of people running over flocking to check it out and none of them were direct witnesses so I guess they were what you might call the vulgarly curious.

After what seemed like forever the cops showed up, and it was the most nonchalant officer I have ever met. I gave him the dollar and told him what happened and he knelt down and asked the guy if he knew where he was or who he was. The man was non responsive and I just hated to have him try and move his head because there was a ton of raw meat hanging where his cheek and lips used to be.

The cop dug in his pockets for a wallet and some ID but the guy had nothing on him. It was pretty obvious he was indigent or homeless. When the paramedics showed up they totally cut every strip of clothing off his body and loaded him up and took him away, leaving behind his shoes, and the shreds of his belt, jeans, shirt, undershirt and white jacket.

I kept saying, "Oh, please don't cut all his clothes off, he might not have any other clothes!"

Right about then I felt my legs get rubbery and I started to shake. I thought I might pull a Marie Osmond right there in the middle of the busiest intersection in Sacramento, so I told the officer I needed to sit down and fast. He said, "Go sit in your car, I'm going to need your driver's license." So I trembled over to my car and sat there shaking while Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland played merrily on the radio, with tears running down my cheeks.

When the cop finally took my info I told him this was the most bizarre thing that had ever happened to me and by that time I was crying outright. He shrugged and said, "Maybe for you, but this happens to me every day." Mr. Callous then handed me back my license and said I was free to go, they'd call if they needed anything.

I pulled cautiously into traffic, went to the next intersection, and turned into where I needed to be for the Supercuts...and proceeded to get the absolutely worst, ugliest, fugliest haircut of my life. Which I guess doesn't really seem that important to me right now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How Horrible! Because you are usually so funny, I kept waiting for the punchline and then kept hoping for a punchline.
I hope those images don't invade your dreams!

Miss Pink Ponsonby said...

Sorry about that! I should have posted a disclaimer at the head of the post.