Tuesday, October 04, 2011

The Sound Was So Soft

The sound of a car hitting a human body was so soft it was creepy.


The sound was so soft.

Last Thursday, I was going home after a book promotion. I was on the sidewalk of the one of the main streets of Belgrade, and I heard something on the street behind me. Not really noisy. I turned around to see a car more pushing than hitting a woman, and she fell to the ground.

The sound of it was so soft.

Seeing where the woman was -- several meters away from the pedestrian crossing -- I assumed she was too lazy to walk to the crossing and was instead running where she felt was convenient to her. People do it all the time. And I kept thinking how soft that sound was while the driver was getting out of the car.

Then I saw a spiderweb of the almost broken glass over half the windshield. And I realized she probably did use the pedestrian crossing, and the guy hit her, and carried her several meters on his car, and she fell off the car, and then he pushed her. That sound that made me turn around, that not-so-noisy, soft sound, was the sound of a car hitting a human body.

The cops happened to be just around the corner, so they arrived quickly. One of the pedestrians who were passing by, a woman, started to check out the body parts of the fallen woman; probably a doctor who happened to be around, or at least someone with some medical training. I saw that the woman who was hit could still move her legs, which meant neither the spine nor the neck were damaged -- at least not too bad.

The sound was so soft.

Both the cops and the doctor lady used their cell phones, my guess is that they called the ambulance, and since the call came from them, the ambulance actually arrived before someone died. The woman wasn't screaming or anything while they were moving her and taking her, and she was still able to move, so someone commented that she probably didn't break any bones. I hope he was right.

And through all of that, I kept thinking how soft the sound of a car hitting a human body was. So soft it was creepy.

I still think about it.

6 comments:

Beverly Diehl said...

We get conditioned by Hollywood that this kind of accident should be loud - but it isn't. It you've ever witnessed a real fistfight, the sound of a balled up fist striking a face, or stomach - also very soft.

Real life doesn't have special sound effects. Humans are soft, fragile creatures, and it's kind of scary how easy it is for us to be hurt, and how quiet it can be.

angel011 said...

Scary indeed. Thanks for reading.

Girl Parker said...

Wow. Now THAT will leave a lasting impression. I'm very sorry this happened at all, but thanks for your well-written account.

angel011 said...

Yes, I'm quite unlikely to ever forget that. Thanks for dropping by!

Karen Wojcik Berner said...

Thank goodness I have never witnessed something like that, but your observations were fascinating and something no doubt you will be pondering on for quite sometime.

angel011 said...

For quite sometime, no doubt.