Accident

Witnessed an accident today as I was about to cross the road junction of California Fitness and Heeren @ Orchard Road.
Two motorbikes had somehow collided into each other and both bike drivers were thrown a good distance along the road together with their bikes.
For a moment there I expected to see the worst, but thank goodness this happened just before the lights turned red, so they weren't hit by other vehices.

A few quick-witted gentlemen rushed towards the two injured men (who by that time had skidded to different places on the main road..in fact, one of them was right in the middle of the cross-road), called for the ambulance and at the same time tried to direct the traffic around them. Some of these people seemed to know first-aid, as I saw them trying to help the bike drivers who were obviously in deep pain.

I couldn't help much as I am not v familiar with first aid, and seeing that there were sufficient people helping to direct the traffic, there was no need for more people to clog up the place before the ambulance arrived. So I tried not to form part of the crowd that was by now swarming the place. Cos this was when the human syndrome of "stand-around-and-stare-and-make-comments" surfaced again...sigh. It's perhaps understandable if people are curious what happened, but sometimes some of the people's remarks are a bit redundant, like "wah lao, fly so far ah! dead or not?" Does saying something like that help the situation? It's still happening right in front of you while you're saying this, the man is almost within hearing distance, so doesn't it just reek of insensitivity?

Some NParks contractors were nearby doing some bush-trimming, and I thought it was rather fast of them to react almost immediately by stopping their work and bringing their 'cones' to where the two injured men were, so that traffic could be diverted away from the scene.

Talking about NParks, brings to mind a friend working there who had his first encounter with accident-related death within one year from starting work there. He recounted to me about how a foreign worker (believe it was a Blangadesh worker) had fallen from a crane about 3 stories above ground. My friend actually witnessed the guy hitting the ground, with the impact forcing almost all of the victim's ribs to poke out from the chest. It was extremely traumatic for both the victim and the witness...according to my friend, the foreign worker was crying for his mother just before he passed away.

I can't imagine if I were to witness something like that. Don't know why, am suddenly reminded of "The Beach", where the injured and dying person was taken alive to the woods, away from the rest because it was too much of a burden for them that someone in pain is staring right at them in the face.