UPDATE 12/18/13 at 2:00 p.m.
Many phone calls and transfers later I still have many questions. What I've been told is that the police were not able to "locate the woman" from my call. They fire trucks were responding to a different call that reported the accident. They won't release any info on the accident, including whether or not it was a fatality, to anyone but the family.
Why they could not "locate the woman" based on my call is mind-boggling. She was in front of the establishment that I called from (of course I gave 911 the address) until leaving in her car 30 minutes later. At least one of us was in the street the entire time watching her. No squad car ever approached.
Thanks to everyone who posted. All the posts have helped me think this out.
It is 11 p.m. Tuesday night and I just got home. My son is at his mother's house. I'm here alone wondering if I failed to prevent someone dying yesterday. No one knows yet if the person has died or is in critical care. I found nothing registered online yet. I'll call Berkeley PD in the morning.
If it turns out that the woman is dead, then I will have to live with knowing I could've prevented it, and in fact came close to doing so. So very close.
it is both ironic and chilling that later the same day of publishing a diary here on my son's being knocked down by a hit-and-run driver, that I came across a woman who was on the verge of playing the same role of the driver that hit my son, but instead, became her own victim. I had never come across such a person before, or more likely, I had but just failed to notice it.
I published the diary about my son at 4:45 on Monday Dec 16. That was yesterday as of this writing. About five hours later that night I called 911 from work to report that a customer kept alternately falling asleep, waking up, trying to walk, and then falling down again.
Yes, I could've been projecting. In fact, I was projecting. Sadly that projection proved correct.
Hell.
I do not know the woman's story. At this point I do not know what caused her initial condition. I do not know if it was the one glass of wine she had that made her become unglued for some reason. I do not know if she was on prescription medications that did not mix with wine. I do not know if she had a stroke.
She had fallen asleep at her table (someone does every week). She was awoken, and then fell back asleep. Then I went over and awoke her again. I told her we were closing and asked if she was okay. "What...oh...I'm fine." She only seemed a bit groggy at first, and merely asked for help with using her cane to get to her feet.
She stood up and she linked her arm around my arm. I couldn't tell if her problem walking with her cane was due to an accident, a permanent disability, medications or having fallen asleep. It was a very long walk to the front door. By the time we reached it and I grabbed the handle, I began to feel responsible for this person who already seemed slipping in and out of life/consciousness. I tried to explain to her that she wasn't capable of getting herself home. "Let me call you a cab." "No, I only live around the corner." I assumed she wanted to walk home. At one point she said, "Let me think about that." Then she sank down into a chair that was just outside the front door. I went back in and called two cab companies. One didn't answer, and the other was unintelligible. Before calling a third, I went back outside to check on her. Then she emphatically and angrily declared through slurred speech, "I came in my own car and I'm going in my own car." That's when I flashed back to what had just happened to my son. I decided to call 911.
While I was on the phone with 911, I could see the woman get up and try to walk away by balancing herself against the storefront window. 911 Told me to wait a moment, and then in about 30 seconds came back and said they had dispatched someone. Berkeley police dept was about 5-7 minutes away in one direction, and Albany (CA) PD was about the same in the opposite direction. Three of us from work intermittently waited in the street for the squad car to arrive.
10 Minutes later no one had come. 15 Minutes later no one had come. 30 Minutes later no one had come. In the meantime, the woman had slowly, inch by inch, made it to her car. She adamantly refused any help or to stay stationary. It had taken her somewhere between 10-15 minutes to do it. I imagined trying to use force to restrain her, but what was her phsyical condition? Did she have spinal problems? Broken bones that were healing? And the police were already overdue to arrive....
She then got in her car and sat there for another 10-15 minutes occassionally turning on lights/and/or the engine. She did that many times. We wrote down the license plate number. Myself and two other folks watched increduously as she eventually drove off up the street and turned on the corner off of Henry/Shattuck onto Rose St. One stayed in the street to keep a lookout for the police.
I went back inside to do counts (we were in the process of closing). Five to Ten minutes later I heard the wail of sirens and saw two fire trucks fly by. My heart sunk.
Two employees walked up around the corner to see what had happened. I stayed behind in case either 911 called back or the squad car ever showed up (which it never did). It was about 15 minutes later that I saw my two coworkers coming back down the street. Less than two blocks away the car had ended up flipped on its side with the driver's door pinned to the ground. They had had to use the Jaws of Life to pull the woman from her car. They saw her taken away on a stretcher, but couldn't tell if she was dead or alive at the time.
They both blamed the late official response for the accident, as I mostly did as well. "Mostly." I also blamed myself for not having called 911 earlier. Maybe "blame" is too heavy of a word to use. On hindsight, logic says that if I had called earlier there would've been an increased chance of them coming before she had taken off in her car.
I cared enough to try. Maybe someone else would've if I hadn't, but I don't know that for sure. I do know that my try wasn't enough to prevent whatever it is that happened when her car flipped over. Had I not been there the result would most likely have been the same. However, the fact that I was there meant that I had a chance to effect the outcome in a more positive manner than I did. So I have mixed feelings about it. To say the least.
It would be so easy for me to pretend that I played no role in the tragedy. I could tell myself I did everything I reasonably could. I certainly could do that if I were a politician. I could do that if I thought the tragedy was inevitable. I could do that if I just used the actions or inactions of others as the rule by which to measure my own actions. I could do that if I used my job description as a metaphor for my own ethical actions. In short, I could do that if I wanted to.
I could avoid responsibility.
I do not wish to avoid my responsibility. I wish to understand it. Otherwise, the next time this happens it will end up the same...or worse.
The fact that I called 911 did not prevent the accident that I tried to prevent. It might've, but it didn't. No agency came to the rescue in time to prevent the flipover. In some sense, I could say I went by the 'book.' I did what a reasonably concerned person could reasonably be expected to do. That turns out not to have been enough.
Was it better than doing nothing? Yes. Was that enough? No.
Am I just thinking about this woman and the threat she posed to both herself and society once she was behind the wheel-and my relationship to that? No. I am also thinking about deaths at large here and abroad for which I share some type of responsibility-and which are often claimed to be done in my name. I do not wish to deny my responsibility in either case. I wish to understand it.
So I am waiting for the morning when, hopefully, I can find out what the hell happened. The results may not clarify my responsibility, but will clarify the consequences of my failure to prevent a tragedy...at least on the personal level. That, in turn, may help me understand how our collective efforts have not the prevented the national and global crises we face....it may help. Or not. In any case, it is worth a try.