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05/24/2013
A couple of years ago, on the eve of the fourth of July, I was driving towards Yosemite a couple of miles from the park entrance. There was quite a bit of traffic, a long line of cars heading to the park, and it was about 10 pm. That stretch of road is pretty dark and desolate.
There was a guy trying to wave down cars; his face and shirt covered in blood. Nobody was stopping. I pulled up beside the guy. He was injured from a head wound. He said he was in an accident and his friends were stuck in the car which was down over the embankment. He told me he'd been trying to wave down cars for 3 hours. I had a hard time believing this, but later I confirmed this fact. Hundreds if not a thousand cars had to pass this guy in that time frame.
Sure enough, the car was over the embankment, upside down, and the doors were ripped off. There were 3 guys in the car hurt badly enough to require experts to get them out.
So, I went back to the road to get more help. No cell phone service was available. We couldn't get anyone to stop, so I finally had to pull my car across the road to force people to stop.
The first car that pulled up had a nurse, and I got her to help. Then I went searching for a pay phone. When I found one, I called the park service and told them where the accident was located. I then headed back. Meanwhile, a doctor had pulled up and was helping out with the injured.
We waited for 2 hours, but nobody showed up. So I went back to the phone and made another call. The operator thought my previous call was a prank and hadn't notified the authorities. Boy, was I hopping mad.
All said and done, it took awhile for the CHP and ambulances to arrive. The guys Had crashed at 7pm. They weren't extracted until about 4am.
The thing that really had me all up in arms was so many people passed this guy, but they were too busy trying to get somewhere. The second thing that bothered me was the park service emergency number had an idiot answering the phone.
All 4 guys lived.
Mark
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