You and Me Both

"You let my daughter DIE!" was the accusation I was confronted with when we returned to our rig out at the ambulance bay.

This of course was not true, this man's daughter had died at the scene, another teenage driving casualty. Though she had not been the driver, the outcome had turned out the same. Youth, inexperience, a fast car, and the perception that "nothing bad can ever happen to me;" all those things contributed, all those things are the reason why.

"You let my daughter DIE TONIGHT!" the man rages at me again. "You didn't SAVE her, you let her DIE out there!"

I say nothing. I cannot be cruel and explain the gruesome details to this man about how his daughter died. The cold hard truth. How bad her head injury had been, how she had been pinned inside the wreckage and needed to be cut out with the Jaws, how she had bled to death from internal injuries before anyone could have gotten to her. This is not the time nor the place, and an explanation is not what he wants. It is nothing he would hear anyway.

Ron has unclipped a LinkLine from his waist. He murmurs into it softly asking for security, but he has not moved from my side. Come hell or high water he stands beside me now ready for come what may. This is not the first time things like this have arisen, and I am sure it will not be the last. He is taking his cues from me, we don't know if this man will come after us, has a knife or a gun, but I have a pretty good inkling. I don't say anything at all, not a word, but I can read this man's eyes like a book and I know I am the one in control here.

"She's dead...they said she is DEAD," the man reiterates, but something in his voice is changing. It isn't anger so much as shock. Still I say nothing but I make sure I don't lose his eye contact. Security slams thru the doors behind us coming at a run, and Jack starts to speak but I stick an arm out behind me and wave him off.

"I just talked to her around eleven and they were on their way home... Now she's gone."

Intuitively I take a step forward, and he takes a step back. He sees me now for what I am; reality, and it's something he does not want to face. He steps back again and backs himself up against the chainlink fence. There is nowhere else to turn. Somewhere behind me someone hisses my name and I ignore it.

I offer out my hand to him, holding it before me. I wait. His eyes close for a moment and he reaches up to rub them, then squats down on his haunches and begins to cry.

"Please go grab me a blanket from the warmer..." I ask Ron.

"She's gone..." the man sobs openly before us now. My stomach twists into knots seeing his pain. Ron nudges me and hands me a warmed blanket and I open it up and reach out to drape it around the man's shoulders.

"Let's go inside," I finally murmur, and the man lets me help him to his feet again. With his blanket around him and his shoulders hunched over, he looks like a little old man now. I walk with him, Ron beside me, Security ahead of and behind us. It has all the feel of leading a convict off to jail.

Once things get sorted out, I leave the man in the care of a chaplain off in one of the consult rooms. Other family members have arrived by then. Before I go the man apologizes, says he knows I did what I could. I nod my head and tell him there is nothing to apologize for, wish him my condolences, and then go.

"I don't know how you do that," Ron says as we walk back up the corridor. "You scare the hell out of me sometimes."

"You and me both Baby, you and me both."