Tuesday, April 17, 2018

5221


5221

 

Dispatch:            5221

Me:                      5221; Hwy 47, Greenville Rd, North bound.

Dispatch:            5221 Single car accident Hwy 26 approximately 4 to 6 miles west of the tunnel.

Me:                      5221 any further information; injuries?

Dispatch:            5221 no information available from caller; said he was stopped by a guy in the highway             

and asked to call 911 as soon as he found a phone booth.  Caller called from Staley’s Junction. 

 

Me:                      Copy; running code.

 

Dispatch:            5221 is running code at 18:21 hours.

 

I’m Mackenzie Clark, 5221, they call me Mac; let me give you some back ground so you know what, where, when and how come.  5221 is my call sign; Swing shift (52) and (21) is me, regardless of what shift I’m working I’m going to be (21).  With that high of a number it’s clear to all the jurisdictions that I’m a pretty new guy with the Sheriff’s Department; I just went past 18 months with the Department starting in late September of 1980.  All the Departments use the same radio channel regardless if it’s a city or the County.  To identify which agency dispatch is calling you have to throw in the 52 so everyone knows this call is going to the Sheriff’s Department.  If I was working day shift I’d be 5121 and grave 5321; the big cheese is the Sheriff and when 5100 comes on the air you know it’s the boss.  5101 Captain on day shift, 5102 Lieutenant, 5103 and on up a few numbers are Sergeants; you get the drift. 

 

Washington County, Oregon is a rather large geographical area and the west end towards the Coast Range is sparsely populated and has only a few small towns. One could say almost villages they are so small.  Closest town with any population and a Fire Department from the call area is Banks and it’s manned only by volunteers, there is no staff on duty.   When a call comes in the siren on top of the Fire Department building blasts and the volunteers rush to the Fire house, grab equipment and respond when they have enough people to man a truck or trucks.

 

Dispatch:            5221

 

Me:                      5221, Hwy 26 at Phil Rd, running code.  (Siren drowning out the words.)

 

Dispatch:            5221, Second caller reports injuries, possible fatalities.

 

Me:                      Copy, can you roll Banks.

 

Dispatch:            Bank has been notified, waiting for personnel to respond, estimating fifteen minutes to                    respond and roll.

 

 

 

Me:                      Copy, I’ll step it up, out running my siren.  (“Out running your siren” happens when you               

are driving so fast that vehicles can’t hear or react to your siren before you’re on them or passing them, you can only hope they see you coming.)

 

Dispatch:            5221 at 18:26 hours.

 

It’s been five minutes and I’m making good time, punched it up to 90mph, the new Impala is purring, happy at this speed, traffic is light, visibility is clear and the road is dry.  Wednesday early evening second week of April is not a busy time of the year on these back roads as you head up and over the Coast range to the beach.  Hwy 26 to the coast is a decently maintained road with few patches and wide lanes; west bound cars are few and they see the overhead lights well before I’m running past them at this speed. 

 

Me:                      5221 dispatch.

 

Dispatch:            5221

 

Me:                      Couple minutes to the tunnel and loosing radio contact.

 

Dispatch:            5221 Copy loosing radio contact; be aware Banks Fire has been unable to fill a team we are rolling Hillsboro Fire rescue estimated time to arrival 45 plus minutes.

 

Me:                      Copy, it’s the west end; at the tunnel.

 

Dispatch:            5221 at…………  (Cut off, dead air.)

 

 

Sweeping long turns, dropping the car back into the 70’s, these long curves won’t support anything more and I’m getting close to where the caller reported the accident.  Second long curve and a short straight stretch I can see a man standing on the right side of the road waving; I pass him going into the long curve rolling just over 60mph as I drop the siren reducing speed more.  At the far end of the curve, I can see three cars parked bumper to bumper along the left side of the road just a few feet off the pavement; there’s a long wide gravel area from the parked cars to the tree line along this section of road giving a good area to park away from traffic but they’re all bunched up next to the traffic lane, strange.

 

Grey Black smoke drifts from West to East across the road pretty much pin pointing the location of the wrecked car but I can’t see it buried deep in the trees from my approach.  Slowing I pull into the graveled area sliding slightly in the loose gravel as I break; I drive towards the drifting smoke stopping the car a good distance from the accident site not wanting to disturb any possible tire tracks etc. 

 

Welcome to my nightmare.

 

There are a couple things I notice right away as I step from my patrol car; no one is near the crash site lending aid. A small group of people are standing clustered by their vehicles a good 70 yards from the wreak by their cars up at the highway.  It’s a group of three people; I can see a man further up the Highway waving to slow traffic of trouble ahead. The small group gives me a little wave but no one walks towards me or the accident.  I can see the group is one man and two women, they’re just huddling together not moving, looking everywhere except towards the crash site.

The second thing I noticed are the Ravens eagerly eating in the gravel a few feet from the opening into the trees and about four more spaced in a line towards the cars parked along the highway. 

 

I take a couple pictures with the 35 mm as protocol dictates and slowly move forward taking it all in; I still can’t see the wreaked car as it was just inside the tree line which is blocking my view, if it wasn’t for the smoke drifting from inside the trees and across the wide gravel area, you’d never know it was there. 

 

A Raven takes to wing as I near it, there lays a large pile of puke that trails off towards the direction of the man that had waved at me earlier as I arrived.  I’m now close enough to see the other Ravens were also at splashes of puke; that little voice in my head started to groan.

 

The winds picking up a little changing from the West sweeping around to the North pushing the smoke down to a low level; I’m going to have to walk through the smoke to get into the slight hole in the woods that the wreak is someplace down in.  As the wind swings, I can smell the heavy sultry carbon smell of hot oil and some other smell I can’t quite make out, something sweet but strangely gagging at the same time, doesn’t smell like anti-freeze it’s something else I can’t quite identify.

 

The strange smell is still dancing digging on my mind as I round the last trees blocking my sight of where the wreak lies.  I’m about twenty feet out to the right of the tree line still walking in the gravel keeping way out where I can see a wide view taking 35 mm photos as I go.   I can finally see the wreak but it’s in shadows even though it’s now only about 20 yards distance, the smoke is obscuring, fogging the crash site swirling around being held tight by the thickness of the trees, one moment clearing then nearly completely obscured.  I stop taking two quick pictures recording the crash site and the depression in the woods the car has come to a stop in.

 

 I look towards the parked cars along the highway before stepping into the small opening in the trees. I see the smoke has swung around and is now pouring in a direct line to the cars parked up by the far pavement. 

 

Something’s strange out of place startling me; the man is bent over one of the women and the other woman I can’t locate.  I can only see the two by the side of the middle car, man over the woman his hands at her head, neck; Oh, she’s puking and he’s pulling her hair away from her face; I stand watching for a few seconds until she finishes, lots of dry heaves.  He opens the passenger door and she falls into the seat.  I finally see the other female, she’s sitting in the front car with her head down, I can just barely make her out as the smoke swirls.

 

Barbeque; the oily smoke is covering the sweet smell of what I associate with a barbeque; sweet earthy aroma but off somehow. 

 

That voice in my head is now getting loud, a constant high-pitched squeal.

 

I take the last few steps into the small opening to the rear of the wrecked car; I can’t make out the type of car other than there’s a Volkswagen emblem on the rear panel.  The smoke is thick this close coming from the middle of the wreak swirling and twisting into tight circles making it hard to see even now just five feet from the rear bumper.  It’s confusing the shape of the car is all wrong, way too short, the width is correct but the length is all off; then I realize, it’s a Volkswagen beetle maybe a mid 1960’s beetle, the front is pushed back smashed from the impact with the tree the whole car now only about five feet in length from tree to that V.W. emblem on the rear.  Engine compartment, passenger area is all combined and pushed together in a tight wad.  The roof is ripped from the A pillars, flipped over and inverted so the inside is facing up and twisted so pointing straight out to the right of the car flat like a flapping wing.  The car is sitting at an angle running up the side of the tree from the impact making it seem even shorter.

 

I realize my feet are getting wet, looking down, I’m standing in a pool of liquid maybe four inches deep pouring into my boots over the laces; but it doesn’t make any sense, it’s split neatly in two parts in a distinct line separating half the pool from the other.  Way back in my mind over the howling internal screams comes the old saying “Oil and water don’t mix” but this isn’t oil and water as the color returns to my eyes, one side is hot black oil, the other cooling glossy bright red blood.  I force my eyes away from the pool and back to the rear of the car; I don’t understand how shock works but I realized that I’d completely ignored the smashed twisted smoking wreak sitting before me and only focused on the pool of liquid.  Jumping out at me are three people jammed between the engine that had once been in the rear compartment now rammed forward jamming the front seats car into the dash and crushed windshield.  

 

Time went away; the smoke was choking making it hard to breathe, my mouth was dry.  I was mouth breathing fighting to get enough air, there was a deep roar in my head mixing with a high-pitched squeal that was hurting my ears; but something was pushing into my head riding just over the top of the din, I realized it was a voice “Deputy” louder, “Deputy; are you, all right?”  I turned, the sound blasting in my head dropped, I could hear the splash of my boots in the sickening pool as I turned; there was a young man standing a few feet from me his eyes on the wreaked car, eyes growing big as I watched, he blinked a couple times, he looked me in the eye then eyes slowly working down the front of my Uniform to my feet and the cooling gelling pool.  His face twisted into a knot as he spun running towards what were now four cars parked at the hard top.

 

The roar in my head of a few seconds ago ended completely in dead silence; I could hear the gravel under his feet as he ran to his car, door slamming, engine starting, tires spinning gravel as he raced away down the highway. 

 

I tasted barf, the space between my teeth and cheeks full.  I looked down at my hands, they were covered in puke, closer the front of my uniform is no longer brown but now shades of glistening barf.  The smell of oil, barbeque and blown bowels is gagging.  I could hear the ticking of the engine cooling behind me, splashes as fluids dripped into the cooling pool.  Everything was over bright hurting my eyes, the smoke has cleared, everything over sharp over exposed.  One ham sized arm of the driver riding along the driver’s door window sill, the tattooed forearm resting comfortably, elbow at a 45-degree angle against the stub of the front A pillar.  Head tilted back bright pinkish red at the eye line as something sharp had sliced his head in half from the eyes up, top wedge of his head hanging over the seat back connected by thin skin and membranes.  These people were huge, grossly overweight, obese.  A picture of a clown car flashed in my brain; I thought how could these people all fit in the front of this little car; then it hit me the center person a woman judging from the watermelon size bare breast the areola the size of my fist must have been riding in the back jump seat area.  She was now sprayed smashed across the tree, upper body flattened by the impact thinned by three quarters, her skull pancaked, teeth embedded into the bark, her lower legs pinned under the rear car frame, the motor ran up between her large ass cheeks cracked and burnt, heavy black oil smoke billowed between her ass crack drifting off into the trees. 

 

The screaming voice in my head was rising to a crescendo.

 

Number three occupant far right in the car was a woman, she was once huge, obese beyond possibility.  She rested arms sprayed over the hood jammed against her chest, head laying between her arms the car hood pushed back against her over the hood looking like she was resting comfortably on the metal of the hood.  Looking past and out into the trees she’d completely emptied her insides as they were hanging from low branches, intestines twisted grey trailing back into the car.  Shades of pulsating grey poured into my vision, deafened by the roar, high pitched shrill screaming.

 

I was shocked by the coldness of the water as they rinsed the puke from the front of my uniform using a hose and the water from the fire truck tanks, my Sergeant standing just out of the splash zone.  I rode the first rescue unit to the hospital alone, just me and the EMT sitting on the gurney in the back, we didn’t speak.

 

A day or so later my Sergeant visited me in the hospital; we talked a little about the crash.  He said I’d done a great job my first twelve pictures of the crash scene had turned out great but the rest of the roll of 36 exposures didn’t come out because the camera lenses was covered in puke and had been saved from the drenching by taking so many pictures the film had come off the roller and was wrapped tight in the film roll.  He said I’d taken 12 to 15 pages of notes in my notebook but they were unreadable being wet, soaked and soiled, only my diagram of the crash site was readable.  He told me the local paper had done a short article on the crash making me a hero suffering smoke inhalation trying to save the occupants. 

 

He had paperwork all filled out for me on the transfer out of Patrol Division moving to Corrections special teams at the first of the next month if I thought I was ready.

 

I wonder if I will ever be ready.

 

 

From the Ramblings

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