Samaria is not a place in Japan

Today, as I made my early bike commute to work, I crossed a busy road illegally about 150 feet before the street where I was planning to turn. I looked ahead at the crosswalk to check the traffic light, and I saw and old lady with a knit cap standing with her bike, waiting to cross the street. I waited for an opening, and then crossed illegally. As I approached the intersection, the light changed and the lady mounted her bike to cross. I shook my head, since I could have crossed legally without waiting. I looked away from her and watched the road ahead of me, when I heard a horrible crashing sound. I whipped my head over to look, and saw the lady falling to the asphalt, having been hit by a black Prius that was making a right turn (like a left, since they drive on the opposite side here).

I ditched my bike and ran into the middle of the street where she was laying. The knit cap had been knocked off of her, due to the force of the accident, as had been her right shoe. I picked her up and carried her off the street, setting her down as gently as I could on the sidewalk. The driver of the car that hit her left his car in the middle of the street, straddling the two lanes, and ran over to check on her.

She was conscious but a bit loopy, repeating that she was on her way to a hospital just a block up the street. The man was really shaken up, apologizing profusely and mentioning over and over that he hadn’t seen her in the crosswalk. All she could say in response was, “I had a green light to cross, right?” They both had a green, but turn arrows are rare, so drivers have to yield to pedestrians. My heart reaches out to the man almost as much as the lady.

I asked the man to call 119 (yeah, they do everything backwards here), but his phone was dead, so he couldn’t. He asked if I could do it for him, and then took off on foot to the nearby hospital, in hopes that they had some kind of emergency services. I asked another lady (who had just come over to help) to make the call, since I’m not the best at giving directions in Japan. I was a bit surprised that it took someone else so long to come over to help. It’s a pretty busy intersection, and cars were crossing in all directions—yet nobody stopped their car to help. I guess they figured that I had things under control. It’s so strange that people could witness something so shocking, and then just go about their day as if nothing happened.

While the other lady made the emergency phone call, I pulled the bike and some of the victim’s strewn belongings off the road, and then checked on her. She was complaining about pain in her head and clutching her right leg, which was likely broken. A few minutes later, an employee from the hospital approached us and mentioned that they didn’t have emergency services at their hospital. By that time, we had already contacted an ambulance, which was on its way.

When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics got out and put the lady on a stretcher, then asked me some questions about the accident. As they were getting the stretcher ready to load onto the ambulance, the Prius driver returned from the hospital and apologized again to the lady. The paramedics instructed us to stay there and wait for the police to come.

As the ambulance pulled away, the Prius driver frantically asked me if I had heard anything about her condition from the paramedics. I told him that her head and leg hurt, but that she was probably going to be okay.

The police showed up and asked me for a statement, after wondering aloud if it was okay to speak Japanese to me. I’m normally very comfortable with my Japanese, but this was new territory for me. I didn’t know all the terms used in an accident, so I spoke in very plain language. I don’t have a lot of experience with accidents, but I could at least explain what I saw.

I realized that by moving the patient and the bike, I messed with evidence. But I didn’t care, since it was more important to me to maintain safety. The bike bell was a good twenty feet away from where the accident occurred. Having not touched that, I pointed it out to the police, who drew a circle around it in chalk. They asked more questions about the traffic signals, my point of view, and where the lady, the bike, and the car all came to a stop. I did my best to describe what I had seen. They took down my contact information and let me know that I’ll probably receive a call later.

After that, I called my school to tell them that I’d be late to work (I was already about 45 minutes late by this point). While riding my bike, I jumped at almost every car that passed close to me. I keep thinking about all the little decisions I make during the day, and how much one little thing can change everything. Honestly, if I hadn’t crossed the road illegally, I could have been in the crosswalk with the lady. It could have been me—or both of us—in that crash.

The lady likely has at least a broken leg and a concussion. I’m sure she’ll survive, but as a 63 year-old woman, she’ll probably never fully recover from her injuries. I just hope that she’s okay, and that the driver will be able to forgive himself.