From Abercrombie & Fitch to sudden death..
So out of the car I go. Running up to her I spot people standing on the side of the road by a frites store. All on their phones, dialling 112 I’d presume!
So yesterday started off so well. I walked through our garden and realised my dream and idea of making a flower meadow slash cottage garden on the side of our house is really starting to happen.
Except from some holes in between flowers and flowers that would benefit from a move to another spot. It is really starting to shape up well.
Last year when moving in this part of our garden was covered with Ivy and had three sad looking Rhododendron bushes in between.
The bushes are now thriving around our patio and many bus loads of Ivy later it is basically all gone. Better keep an eye on it though.
Anyhow, I took off and travelled through a beautiful and summery Belgium. Spotted some young horses snoozing on a field. Listened to some podcasts and all was good.
One of the podcasts I listened to was TCO - True Crime Obsessed - and their episode covering Abercrombie & Fitch.
For sure I got some great laughs and giggles during this episode. Even more so when leaving a shop and the girl behind the counter told me she send a colleague around the back with my stuff.
And she did, not only one but two drop dead gorgeous guys who for sure would have fit the profile of Abercrombie & Fitch which made it even more hilarious.
What a great day!
Or so I thought..
Little did I know the good Gods above had other complete other things in store for me on this glorious Tuesday.
Sudden death
Around just after 3pm (15.00h) with some two kilometers to go to the ring of Brussels - which normally is totally drama in itself - I spot a truck across the road. My initial thought on this is; he is backing up this may take some time, better slow down.
Getting closer I see something laying in front of the side of the truck.
Getting even more closer I see it’s a person and like; oh my God the driver left the truck and collapsed, better stop and help (I also did not see anybody).
Getting real close I see it is a bicycle and an old woman on the ground. Bloody f-cking hell. Emergency evacuate (yes I used to be a flight attendant) and get out of your car and help her.
So out of the car I go. Running up to her I spot people standing on the side of the road by a frites store. All on their phones, dialling 112 I’d presume!
I check her pulse. But I cannot find anything moving. Then I spot her head - or what is left of it - and all the blood and realise this really is game over. So I retreat back to my car for a blanket and I place it over her body and go back to driver’s seat and break down.
The phone call to my boss begging (as if that was really necessary) him to pick me up was divided in fragments such as; dead woman, on the street, in front of my car, it wasn’t me!
Then the EMC - emergency - response arrived on the scene.
So now I am sitting in my car - I had nowhere else to retreat - in front of what myself some seconds, minutes, hours earlier (you loose track of time in situations like these) concluded was a dead woman, watching the ambulance crew performing CPR - Cardiopulmonary resuscitation - on her.
Which made my mind play tricks on me.
What if I was wrong? What if she was still alive and I didn’t do more than I did? What kind of idiot am I?
Not good, not good, NOT GOOD!!
Eventually the Doctor arrived on the scene. It could have been 30 seconds later or an hour. Honest to God I would not be able to clock him in on it. And it did not take all that long before they made the call and pronounced her dead.
The good Doctor then came up to me as one of his first other subjects to take care of. We had a long chat and he heard my story and he also confirmed there really wasn’t anything else I could have done and that I did good.
Before he left the scene of the accident he came back to me and made sure I was ok. So did his colleague and the police.
The drama continues..
This is where this story could have ended. At least on my behalf. But my car was kind of part of the “crime scene” in a way and I was also waiting for someone to pick me up. And to get me and my car out of there obviously takes two people.
The fire department had put their screens up long time ago. But from my car - my safe spot - where I tried to stare down on my phone and look at cute photos of my horses and other things I still could see what happened.
The EMC response team cleaned her up.
They also placed those white hospital blankets over her body. In all they set up an all familiar scene of the one after my father passed away in the hospital long long time ago. Staging a dignified scene for your loved ones to say goodbye.
At this point I had left my car and found a retreat under a tree with a glass of soda in my hand. Generously served by one of the many friends and family members of the woman now on the scene.
Cause all this happened in a very small village on the outskirts of the capital of Europe that is Brussels.
Suddenly the screens were exchanged to a tent and even more members of the family arrived. One by one did they go into the tent to pay their respect and say goodbye.
As horrible the circumstances around all this were it was also painfully beautiful.
A relative of the woman told me she was basically the matriarch of this village. She was known and loved by everybody and handled her kids and other kids as well as their 80 cows on the farm back in the days with a very much sturdy hand.
But on this day, the 6th of June in the year of 2023, her time on earth as we know it, was up. In which she got run down by a truck just 50m from her very own front door.
Everyday heros!
As for me, I am home today, doing not so much. And sharing this story is not to make other people feel bad but more of a therapy session for myself.
It is also a total celebration of life and a tribute to those amazing people at the police, the ambulances and fire department that deals with this stuff on a daily basis to keep the rest of us safe from harm!
These people really are the true heros in the crazy world we live in! ❤️