So when we turned on the TV two days ago to find out more about a local bus and train crash and discovered it had happened just a few miles from where we live, I commented: No Curves today. The place I do circuit training three times a week is just around the corner from where the accident occurred.
At first we didn't realize how bad it was.
As we watched live coverage and saw the severity of the crash that left six people dead, we wondered if anyone we know might have been on that bus. Terry thinks of someone and calls his cell phone number, leaving a message when no one answers the phone.
A while later, my neighbor Mary runs over to say that someone she knows is unaccounted for. His mother has just called Mary's daughter to find out if she had seen him at university. She hadn't. He didn't show up at class.
Family members have been told to get information at the Sportsplex, I tell Mary. (The Sportsplex, just down the street from the crash site, is where she and I take art classes.)
As we watch eye witnesses interviewed on TV, we hear Amanda, a girl whose family we know, tell how the bus she was riding on had crashed into the train. Amanda's grandmother lives at the same nursing home my mother does. Fortunately Amanda is a survivor of the crash.
How many others we know may have been on the bus?
The following day's paper gives the names of the six who were killed: Conor, Mary's daughter's friend, is among them.
A few survivors are still in the hospital. Do we know any of them? We don't know. Terry is still waiting to hear from his friend.
A few days later: Terry's friend, Scott, finally got back to him. The day of the crash, he had accidentally left his cell phone off. (His wife had also frantically been trying to call him.) He didn't take the bus that day. Instead, he drove his son to school, then continued in his car to work.
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