"Time heals,” they say.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It’s been more than 3,500 days since I watched the state trooper spray orange fluorescent paint on the black asphalt. And chills still cascade down my spine.
The trooper—wearing the Smokey Bear hat—and I were standing on the double-striped yellow line when he repeated, “Mr. NeSmith, there was nothing that you could have done. The accident was unavoidable.”
And since then, I’ve driven the curvy country road hundreds—no, thousands—of times. Each time I pass the spot, I think about timing and how a few seconds can change everything. Go back with me to that winter night in 2016.
I had put in a full day at the office, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get to the farm. The speed limit on Smithonia Road is 45 mph. I doubt that I was doing that when—bam!
Stabbing the brake, I swerved to the side of the road and punched the emergency-flasher button. Dialing Madison County’s 911, I shouldered my truck door open to a buckling sound. As I was giving the operator my location, a startled young man appeared.
He had been trailing behind me when he caught a glimpse of what had happened in the curve near the crest of the hill. He had jerked his SUV into the ditch—careening into a hayfield—to avoid smashing into my vehicle.
“What was it?” I asked.
“A motorcycle.”
“A motorcycle? I never saw it.”
Oh, no. Someone was hurt or worse.
Other cars were pulling over. With his tiny flashlight, the eyewitness and I started our frantic search. We found the motorcycle, but where was the rider? A woman shouted, “He is here!” In her pastel medical scrubs, she was kneeling beside the cyclist in the ditch, 75 feet away.
“Is he breathing?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. But after moving her fingers from his neck to his wrist, she never looked up. Instead, she shook her head.
I dialed 911 again. The dispatcher promised, “We are on our way.” Sure enough, a fire truck’s siren pierced the eerie silence. Blue and red lights were soon flashing in the Friday-night blackness. A first responder’s red F-150 blocked one end of the traffic.
Emergency personnel were swarming. A deputy put his hand on my shoulder and said that a state patrolman was coming to investigate. Minutes seemed like hours.
While we waited, Robert identified himself. He had been driving behind me. Robert said, “The motorcycle … it was flying … must have been passing a car in the curve, on top of the hill. And the car just drove past us.” I never saw the motorcycle. And I hadn’t seen the car. I had been too focused on getting my truck off the road.
While the trooper interviewed Robert, I couldn’t take my eyes off the motionless motorcycle rider. Shuddering, I thought, “That’s someone’s son, brother, father or husband.”
Why, why, why?
After getting my statements, the trooper pointed to the marked spots, indicating where the impact occurred. “See your tire marks. You were on your side of the road,” he said. “The motorcycle was over the line.”
“But why hadn’t I seen its headlights?” I asked.
The trooper theorized that when the motorcycle topped the hill, the rider must have tried to cut back to his side of the road, and the headlight wasn’t facing me. “It was not your fault,” he said. More than 3,500 days have passed. I still grieve for the young man and his family. And the “what-ifs” continue to erupt chills. What if there had been three seconds’ difference in our travels? He might still be alive. Just a split second of altered timing meant the difference between life and death. And what if the rider had catapulted through my windshield? I doubt that you’d be reaing this.
Time has erased the orange marks on the asphalt. But I wonder whether time will ever heal my anguish of the tragedy.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
You can reach Dink NeSmith at dnesmith@cninewspapers.com