“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” I kept yelling

The car severed. I looked at the little girl, the look of fear frozen on her face would be the last image of her that I would see because suddenly she was gone. The car stopped and my mom raced out of the passenger side yelling, not knowing what she would find when reached the front end of the car.

“Oh God, I just killed a five year old girl!” I started to hyperventilate as I thought the worse.

I got out of the car just as the lady who was following behind ran up. “I was behind you and saw the whole thing,” she said. “I saw her racing into the street and I saw the brake lights. There was no way you could have avoided hitting her. She didn’t look where she was going.” She introduced herself and continued, “when I saw her ride her bike into the street I knew what was going to happen. There was no way it could have been avoided…”

I heard what she was saying but I wasn’t really listening to her. I was more concerned about the little girl. I thought I had killed her and that feeling was the worst feeling I ever felt in my life. How was I going to explain to this girl’s family that even though it was an accident I had taken their child’s life? How was I going to live day by day with the image of the little girl looking at me with fear in her eyes as my car moved toward her while I was helpless to stop it?

I ran to the front of the car and I saw the Dora the Explorer bike laying in the street, but I didn’t see the little girl.

Time just seemed to move in slow motion, even the rain seemed to fall slowly from the sky. It was strange, like I could see each individual drop as it fell, exploding on the street below. Maybe my mind was shutting down or maybe it was just my way of dealing with the worst thing I had ever done in my life. I felt sick. The rain fell harder. Water dripped from my hair as I looked for the little girl

“Are you ok?” I heard my mom asking the little girl as she took her jacket off and wrapped it around the little girl who stood shivering in the rain.

“Yes” the little girl said. She was visibly frightened, we all were.

It was cold and I was shaking but not from the cold. I was shaking from the fear of what had just happened. It felt like my heart was going to explode and I had to take some time to catch my breath.

We called the police and as we waited for them to arrive, the lady who was traveling behind me and my mom talked to the little girl to help ease her fears. Looking back on it now, I can’t even begin to imagine what was going through her mind. The little girl wanted to go home but she was told that she had to wait so we could make sure she wasn't hurt. At this point she began to cry as she pointed in the direction of her house and asked if we could take her home. She wanted her “mommy.”

I didn’t know what to do, other than stand in the rain feeling scared, numb, and yet, somehow relieved knowing that the little girl was alive and other than a small scratch on her finger she looked to be doing well.

As we all stood in the rain waiting for the police a car drove past then made a quick U-turn and parked behind me. A woman ran from the car. She was crying hysterically. She ran right to the little girl and picked her up. “where have you been? Everyone is looking for you…“ The lady then looked at my mom and said something that seemed really strange and out of place to me. She said, “thank you.”

The lady hugged her little girl and cried, then cried some more. She then told us that the little girl had been missing and the police were out looking for her. The mother told us that she has been driving around all day looking for her and her husband was out looking for her too. We told the mother what happened and that we were waiting for the police to show up. She called her husband and told him our location and said that the little girl was fine, she wasn’t hurt. She was ok.

I thought about the girl’s father and how angry he was going to be, because if I had been in the same situation I would be angry and I would be out for blood. I figured he would show up, yell at me and then kick my ass. I thought if he did come I would put my hands in my pocket and let him hit me. The father arrived just after the police got to the scene and like his wife before him, he did something that seemed strange to me. He didn’t yell, he didn’t want to hit me - he simply came up to my mom, shook her hand and hugged her, then he shook my hand and hugged me too. At that point I think I would have felt better if he had at least yelled at me.

Two policemen arrived on the scene, one on a motorcycle and the other in a car. The motorcycle cop arrived first and asked us what happened. We told him and he briefed the other policeman when he arrived. He added that the little girl was the one they had been looking for.

The policeman kneeled down and asked the little girl if she was ok, she said she was ok but wanted to go home. The policeman said, “we’ve been looking for you for a long time. It’s not nice to run-a-way from your mommy. You’re not going to do that again, are you?” The little girl shook her head and the policeman continued, “You shouldn't ride your bike in the rain. It's very dangerous” The policeman told the little girl that he had a daughter close to her age and he wouldn’t like it if she ran away. The little girl nodded and buried her face into her mother’s hips. The policeman reached his hand out to her and asked if she wanted to shake it. The little girl refused.

The policeman talked to the parents and to us and asked if any of us wanted to file a report. He said that if we did file a report the little girl would be cited as being at fault for the accident. He said that if no one wanted to file a report than we could all go home. We exchanged information and I told the father that I would call him next to week to see how things were going. He then hugged me again and said, “God bless you.”

At the time I felt that was a strange thing to say but later I thought that maybe he was happy that although his daughter was in an accident at least she was ok and she had been found. Every day kids runaway or are taken and a lot of them are never found or are found murdered - maybe that’s what had been going through his head. Maybe he thought that he would never see his daughter again…maybe.

I drove away and pulled into the parking lot of a near by store. I looked at my mom and whispered, “I thought I had killed her.” As I said the words I couldn’t help it, everything came rushing at me and I started to cry like a little girl. My mom tried to comfort me.

“Things happen for a reason and your life can change from one instant to the next. You never know why things happen…you were going slow, maybe if you hadn’t done this someone else may have come through the street going faster, you know they drive crazy around here especially in the rain, and they may have killed her… She was missing, maybe someone would have taken her and God knows what could have happened to her…She was going in the opposite direction of her house… maybe this happened so we could hold her there until the police came so someone else wouldn‘t take her…only God knows why this happened, but it happened for a reason…”

All I could think or say was “I thought I had killed her” and in my mind I could see the look of fear in the little girl’s eyes as my car continued to move toward her. I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I felt sick. I opened the door to my car and threw up.