Sometimes rubbernecking leads to blog posts

I never "rubberneck" when I see accidents on the side of the road. I'm actually quite proud of this. I make it a point to stare straight ahead and keep my foot on the gas. Rubbernecking is such a problem in Atlanta that an accident could set you in traffic for hours.

Today I saw an accident scene that made me come to a complete stop in the middle of the highway.

I was traveling down the highway into metro Atlanta and I saw a helicopter fly to just in front of me and then do a complete 180 and turn around. Oh, that must be the traffic helicopter and this is as far out as it goes, I thought. I kept my eye on the helicopter and I felt like I was catching up to it. It was getting much larger and seemed closer to the ground. Indeed it was landing. In the middle of the damn highway (opposite side I was on.) There was a fireman in full regalia squatting on the highway while the helicopter touched down and a policeman was running back and forth across the highway waving his arms to stop traffic in the lanes.

"What the-" I said as I leaned over to look. I'd never seen anything like this before. Then I saw it. On the onramp there was a tractor-trailer. It was stopped with the driver vacated from the cab; it looked fine. Then I saw the back of the trailer. An old Chevrolet Silverado was smashed in the back of the trailer and the front was completely crumpled right up to the steering wheel. The cab of the pick-up truck was compacted into itself. The driver-side door was open and there was another fireman by the truck: the man was still in it, with space enough to see him. The cab was completely enclosed around him. This is where I came to a complete stop.

I looked back at the helicopter. It was a rescue helicopter, probably taking this man to a specialty hospital like Emory. I thought of how after WWII they decided that every other mile on a highway must be straight in case of emergency plane landings. Although it was a helicopter, this was the first time I'd seen that in use.

I checked out a news website a couple of days later to see if there was anything on that accident- whether the man had lived, or was missing limbs etc., but I never saw anything on it.