So this morning I've been learning all about the world of EMT rescue, trauma, and how to deal with specific regard to bike race tracks. Very interesting stuff. How often do you think about the person whose job it is to rescue you from a traumatic situation ala car crash, being thrown from a bike etc. These are they guys who strap you into that board and prevent your spinal injury to the best of their ability. I've never been in a serious accident although occasionaly I'm terrified of cars. Unfortunately that isn't making me a better driver and I still don't have a bike helmet.
Earlier this summer while walking back from book club Maria and I whitnessed a car accident on Franklin. It was right at the corner of Blaisdale and Franklin in front of the African American Services Center. It must have been around 9:30 at night. I'm still not sure how it happened but I'm pretty sure that the first car pulled out onto Franklin from one of the side streets and hit the second car on the drivers side. The first car then kept driving, pulling out ahead of the car it hit (which was trying to pull over to the side of the road, out of traffic etc) and continued driving, probably going only around thirty or fourty miles an hour and plowed right into the lamp post on the ride hand corner of the street. The first hit which we only heard and didn't see (as it was beind us about fifty or so feet) was enough to shock me, but it didn't seem that bad so we kept walking, paying attention, but trying our best not to gawk. However when the car kept going I began to get really worried as you could tell that something was obviously not right with the driver of the car. We watched in what felt like slow motion as the car ran head on into the lamp post. That was what freaked me out is that we were watching this car, this heavy, quick moving piece of metal filled with at least four people at the time, we were watching it and we could see where it was headed. And there was nothing that anybody could do about it. After they crashed into the post we turned down the corner to give ourselves some distance from it. Niether of us called the police, my hand was reaching for my cell phone, but was frozen above it. It was as if we both wanted to ignore the awful scene that we had just whitnessed and hope that everything was ok instead of actually doing anything about it. There were a couple of men standing not to far behind us who also seemed to have seen everything and they ran up to the accident to check on people and also called the 911 immediately. The cops showed up and attended to the passangers of the car. The driver of the first car seemed to be suffering not just from shock of the accident, but also of some sort of intoxication. Everyone else seemed to be fine. But then again, I'm no EMT, I was just watching from the shadows.

Edited to say: Just as I finished posting a Minneapolis Fire truck pulled up to the front of Hang It the framing shop on Lyndale next to the soccer store and Sunny Side-Up Cafe. I don't see any smoke, and the emt people seemed to be huddled around the back of the truck. Very curious. Lights are flashing and its parked the wrong way on the street.

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In other news... today's word of the day is "bricolage" the definition of which seems to be a pretty accurate description of almost everything I do, mostly though of my cooking. In my cooking I almost always start with a recipe, but the lack of specific ingredients never gets me down.