If you could, I wouldn't be here tonight. Neither would my sister.
I was planning on meeting my sister today to do some shopping. She lives about 45 minutes away from where I live and where we were going to shop, so she just called me from her car when she got close so we could arrange a place to meet. So I'm talking to her and she says, "Someone is coming up to my car." Then she yells, "What did you say? What do you want?" At this point, I'm terrified, because my sister is very smart but sometimes is more kind-hearted than logical, and I was afraid she'd do something to get herself hurt. So I yelled, "Wendy, don't!" right as her phone went dead.
I can't even describe how scared I was. I had a strong feeling that she was on the exit ramp from the interstate waiting to turn onto the road that I was on when we were talking, and I was feet away from there, so I drove up to that place, but the exit ramp was on my left with about 5 lanes of traffic between us, and I couldn't see anything. I could see that a lot of people were walking around right there, so I was a little comforted thinking nothing too bad was likely to happen with people around. So I started praying and decided to turn around so that I'd be on the other side of the road and could get a better look at the exit ramp. But there was a lot of traffic, and it took me forever to turn around. I called her back, but she didn't answer. I think about 5 minutes probably elapsed, but it felt like 5 days. I was about 30 seconds away from calling 911 because I just couldn't get back to that ramp when she finally called me back.
Apparently she was at the stop light on the exit ramp I thought she was on. A man came up to her window and, with a few explitives thrown in that I'll leave out, told her to call 911. He said that his homeless friend was being attacked with a machete. She did call 911, but the guy continued to bang on her window and was demanding that he give her the phone. She couldn't go anywhere because there were cars on all sides of her and behind her. The 911 operator was urging her to drive off, but she couldn't. In the meantime, people in the cars around her were calling 911 on her behalf. The operator actually told her that they were getting more calls about it right then. Finally the light turned green and she drove off, and that was it. She called me as soon as she got off the phone with 911.
I did watch the first few minutes of the news tonight, but I didn't see anything about a homeless man being attacked by a machete. I don't know if any of the story was true. In retrospect, she was still stuck at the red light when I was driving right past her but couldn't see because of all the traffic in between us. I don't know what I would have done to help if I could have stopped, but at least I would have been able to see her. Waiting until she called me back was absolutely horrible.
I was planning on meeting my sister today to do some shopping. She lives about 45 minutes away from where I live and where we were going to shop, so she just called me from her car when she got close so we could arrange a place to meet. So I'm talking to her and she says, "Someone is coming up to my car." Then she yells, "What did you say? What do you want?" At this point, I'm terrified, because my sister is very smart but sometimes is more kind-hearted than logical, and I was afraid she'd do something to get herself hurt. So I yelled, "Wendy, don't!" right as her phone went dead.
I can't even describe how scared I was. I had a strong feeling that she was on the exit ramp from the interstate waiting to turn onto the road that I was on when we were talking, and I was feet away from there, so I drove up to that place, but the exit ramp was on my left with about 5 lanes of traffic between us, and I couldn't see anything. I could see that a lot of people were walking around right there, so I was a little comforted thinking nothing too bad was likely to happen with people around. So I started praying and decided to turn around so that I'd be on the other side of the road and could get a better look at the exit ramp. But there was a lot of traffic, and it took me forever to turn around. I called her back, but she didn't answer. I think about 5 minutes probably elapsed, but it felt like 5 days. I was about 30 seconds away from calling 911 because I just couldn't get back to that ramp when she finally called me back.
Apparently she was at the stop light on the exit ramp I thought she was on. A man came up to her window and, with a few explitives thrown in that I'll leave out, told her to call 911. He said that his homeless friend was being attacked with a machete. She did call 911, but the guy continued to bang on her window and was demanding that he give her the phone. She couldn't go anywhere because there were cars on all sides of her and behind her. The 911 operator was urging her to drive off, but she couldn't. In the meantime, people in the cars around her were calling 911 on her behalf. The operator actually told her that they were getting more calls about it right then. Finally the light turned green and she drove off, and that was it. She called me as soon as she got off the phone with 911.
I did watch the first few minutes of the news tonight, but I didn't see anything about a homeless man being attacked by a machete. I don't know if any of the story was true. In retrospect, she was still stuck at the red light when I was driving right past her but couldn't see because of all the traffic in between us. I don't know what I would have done to help if I could have stopped, but at least I would have been able to see her. Waiting until she called me back was absolutely horrible.
I would have really panicked!
