Two hours ago, I was standing in line at the bank, looking up at the TV monitor overhead, dutifully avoiding eye contact with the other people waiting in line, and patiently waiting to deposit some money.  That's when I hear the all too familiar sound of tires screeching, the sound that instantly lets you know some wicked shit is about to happen.  I turn my head to the left just in time to see a Mercedes SUV slam head on into a Honda Prelude that was trying to turn left just 20 yards away.  I suddenly found myself with front row seats to a nasty car wreck.

The side of the bank that faced the road was a large wall of glass, so there was nothing at all to obstruct my view.  The road itself was only separated from the bank by a sidewalk and a few feet of grass.

Apparently, the girl in the Honda was trying to turn left, and didn't see the SUV heading straight for her.  When the two cars hit, the SUV knocked the prelude back about 10 feet and spun it almost 180 degrees, and the SUV almost flipped over on it's right side, but amazingly, the guy in the SUV over corrected before it could flip, and he lost control and went into someone's yard across the street.

Everybody, including the tellers, stopped what they were doing and ran over to the glass to get a better look.  I would call them nothing but shameless gawkers, but I was just as guilty.

But before I joined the crowd of on lookers, my first instinct was to pull my Blackberry out of my pocket.  On my phone, when it's locked, the option screen says, "Unlock" Emergency Call" and "Cancel."  I had never hit the emergency call button before, so this was my chance to test it out.  I hit the button and it called 911, I told the operator about the accident and she said that EMS, police would be dispatched.

While I'm on the phone with her, I see people running out of their houses to help.  It was amazing how quickly a mob of people can appear after a wreck in a neighborhood like that.  One guy opened the passenger side door of the Prelude, and a guy immediately slid out of the car and plopped out onto the pavement where shards of broken glass were scattered around.  The guy was all bloody and had shards of glass in his arm and maybe his face, an arm that was obviously broken between his elbow and wrist, and he wasn't moving.  He kind of looked like the comedian Brian Posehn, except, you know, bloody and fucked up.  The chick driving was pretty fucked up too, and someone wrapped her in a blanket and set her on the curb, where she proceeded to cry and shake uncontrollably.  Looking at the vacant and demolished Honda, I could see that both airbags were deployed and had blood on them. 

The guy in the Mercedes, was a guy in his 50's and was wearing a business suit.  He sat in his SUV the whole time this was going on, and people kept coming up to see if he was okay.  I saw him put his hands up, as if to say, "I'm all right, just give me some space."

I assumed Brian Posehn's twin, who had yet to move since he had fell from the car to the bed of broken glass on the pavement, was in fact, dead.  But after a few seconds, he started rolling around and putting his hands on his face, I guess to see if he had wounds on his face or not.  Thank God, I didn't really want to see someone die, but he looked really fucked up.

The fire department was first on the scene, and with that, I found the only employee in the bank that wasn't being a looky-loo, and had them deposit my money.  I immediately got in my truck after that and got the hell out of there before traffic would be backed up in every direction.

I felt bad for what happened to those people in the accident.  It's hard to have a good day after seeing something like that.  But, at least I didn't have to wait in line anymore.