I Might Have Seen Death, Again by richristow

story · @richristow · Sep 11 '17 (edited)

$4.92

I Might Have Seen Death, Again

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<p>Today, I think I saw a dead body. I'm not sure, but the circumstantial evidence was a little too great. There was a motionless guy, looking contorted and stiff laying in the middle of the road. The whole time I saw him, he never opened his eyes, and it didn't look like he was breathing, either. Another guy stood about five feet away on his cell phone with a look of horrified concern on his face. There was a dent in the hood of his car. About ten more feet away from all of this, a damaged ebike laid on its side. This looked like the result of a car hitting a scooter at a high speed. The guy in the road was likely &nbsp;thrown off his vehicle. Since police and emergency medical officials were not on the scene, this must have happened just minutes before I passed by on my own electric motorcycle.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I was not even remotely tempted to take a picture of this. I believe in respecting the dead and injured. I will always try to err in the direction of respecting other people's dignity. &nbsp;Yes, I may be writing about the incident on a social media platform, but I do not believe in posting pictures or video of somebody else's tragedy. I am a blogger and not a journalist, and there is a REAL difference between the two. Blogging is overtly subjective whereas journalism tries to keep subjectivity in check while sourcing things. Nothing in this post is sourced -- as it is written more as a reaction and a meditation on what <em>I thought I saw.</em> I am writing about it as a way to process it all. As for tragedies, there were two of them on that road today: one guy laying in the street and his family who will suffer his death or injury, and the driver standing in the middle of the road. His life will change after today. However, it made me think of a few other things.&nbsp;</p>
<p>First, in a very real way, I am not haunted by this scene. Horrified? Yes. Haunted? Definitely not. I have seen dead people before. Once you have, it changes you forever. &nbsp;One was my mom after losing a grueling three year long battle with cancer.</p>
<p>If you separate the prior family trauma out of my life, there were other instances. &nbsp;I have seen fatal car wrecks before, and if you have seen that sort of devastation, you sort of go numb at the visual. When I was 14 and 15 years old, I lived in Belgium. Drivers there were certifiably insane. My family used to make a weekly trip from Mons to Brussels to go shopping. On the stretch of highway between the two cities, I have seen people reading newspapers while driving well over 100 kilometers per hour. I have seen pile ups where survivors were bloodied and being loaded into ambulances, and I have seen the unfortunate ones laying on the road under white sheets. Or, they were in their shattered cars waiting to be extracted. This was in the late 1980's, and I hope very much the driving culture in that part of Belgium has changed for the better.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The other thing is that I also spend a lot of time on Chinese roads. The driving here is also chaotic, but I have never seen a lot of bad accidents. Maybe it's because I live in the urban parts of a city? Today, I was on rural highways and back roads in the western part of Jiangyin (the part next to Changzhou's Xinbei district). People may be driving faster out here because of less traffic. I also thought that maybe I take my safety for granted, sometimes. For all the riding I do on my bike, sometimes against the flow of traffic, I don't wear a helmet. Hardly any ebike riders out here do. Sometimes, you can see a mom, a dad, kids and a dog all crammed onto one ebike. &nbsp;None of them are wearing helmets either.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Anyway, I was trying to get to a village name Shizhuang <strong>石庄镇</strong>, and I was going there because I was bored and have never been there before. I was just scratching the curiosity itch. &nbsp;This very small town is next to an industrial port on the banks of the Yangtze. I ended up at a park.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><img src="http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r664/richristow/IMG_20170910_190507_zps0nandnx2.jpg~original" width="938" height="962"/></p>
<p><img src="http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r664/richristow/IMG_20170910_190623_zpsiejmgivd.jpg~original" width="938" height="973"/></p>
<p><img src="http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r664/richristow/IMG_20170910_190652_zpselojngph.jpg~original" width="938" height="920"/></p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Eventually, I circled back to start to head back to my home in Changzhou. There was a temple I wanted to check out on the way. Once I got there, I reminded how thoughts of mortality can follow you in subtle ways. The culture around graveyards is different in China than it is in the West. In this end of China, cemetery plots tend to be in secluded places, and you normally just don't happen into them by sheer accident. Many Chinese people I know, due to superstition, don't even want to be remotely near them. Yet, today, I ran into one near Shizhuang on the side of the road, which brought my mind full circle to where my mind was earlier.&nbsp;</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><img src="http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r664/richristow/IMG_20170910_191008_zpsv4gew2ap.jpg~original" width="938" height="889"/></p>
<p><br></p>
<p>I really hope I didn't see a dead body today. The truth is this: I <em>really </em>don't know what I saw. &nbsp;Maybe the guy was knocked out, and maybe, although seriously injured, he is recovering in a hospital right now. I really hope that is the case. However, if he really did die on the road today, may he rest in peace.&nbsp;</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</html>

👍 alexis555, realcodysimon, richristow, cryptastic, gringalicious, coinbitgold, solarguy, annaarthur, speda, twistychips, sv67216721, aextraov, olimpus, nchakoy, yuliyaaxma, nuya, veraserzon, starovoy, beloch, arda1, praxsteem, zuyim, olleyaya, referef, cloratc, torsadoduh, wefathgy, v1taliy, fh8ysa9e7f7a, zoyalutovinov, turinos, debicontreras, azzart, jimin95, allegro, flicsurbustmi, bonnl, pionerr, lamaroconnell, zhuchok, sberkassa, jbp, boyyn, nazel, jimeropler, wise-old-man

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@abdelhamidtsouli · Sep 10 '17

https://media.giphy.com/media/5p2wQFyu8GsFO/giphy.gif

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@aldentan · Sep 10 '17

$0.43

Sorry you had to go through this. Death really opens your eyes. Suddenly, many things in life seem minor and silly.

I saw my dad's dead body in front of me when he finally succumbed to ALS. It was so real, yet, lifeless. 

Kudos for respecting the dead.

👍 richristow, ginafraser

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@richristow · Sep 10 '17

You are exactly correct. Witnessing mortality changes people. Sorry about your experience with you dad. That had to be brutal. I went through something very  similar with my mom.

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@aldentan · Sep 11 '17

$0.67

Sorry you had to go through that too.

The image honestly haunts me still, but I guess it's a reminder of the way I live today, which is to do what I want and be happy while trying to help others. 

For sure, when you witness mortality, you just know EVERYONE reaches the same destination.

👍 richristow

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2 replies

@wise-old-man · Sep 10 '17

RE: Today, I Might Have Seen Death, Again

_**The faster you go, the shorter you are.**_

 \- Albert Einstein

👎 richristow

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@solarguy · Sep 11 '17

Scary. At least someone the driver stopped.  Ive seen some pretty gruesome accidents too and lost friends to them too.  I hope he was just knocked out. These things rarely make it in the news here, tough to know the official statement.

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@richristow · Sep 11 '17

right, and that's why I felt the need to point out the difference between being a blogger and a being a journalist. these things are rarely reported in the local media, and even more, my Chinese reading skills suck. Even if I wanted more info on what happened, I wouldn't be able to find it. So, I am left with a chaotic memory of something I thought I saw.

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