Sunday, May 08, 2011
Goodbye Rachel
The situation at work is getting bad and some of us who have been there for a long time are being treated like absolute shit and some have been threatened with their jobs. I haven’t been threatened, yet, but I have been getting some seriously abusive treatment which makes me believe that some of us are going to be getting canned in the near future. The boss has been hiring all new people, the manager’s friends, and giving them all the good stuff, letting them sit back and relax between boats, treating them with respect and treating the rest of us very poorly. Like I said, he has actually told some people that they were on their way out.
So, this past week, I have been working hard to find a new place and job so as not to have this happen with no plan. One thing I’ve never mentioned is that if I lose the job, I lose my place to live. It’s one of the perks if you want to take them up on it. I did. Because it would be stupid not to when you could save up some money. It’s something I doubt I’ll ever do again, though, because some things just aren’t worth it.
Anyway, I have found a place, I’ve applied several places and I’m leaving in 9 days. It’s out of this state and it’s hard to get a job from another state so with some leads, I’ve applied for, I’ve decided to go up there, hope for the best and hope to GOD I get gainful employment asap. So I’ve been very nervous, very anxious, wondering if this will work out. I don’t know. I honestly do not know. I hope it does...I hope I don’t fail because if I do....where the fuck do I go? And I wondered, this week, if I shouldn’t just sit here, instead, and wait to be fired or let go. “Am I doing the right thing? Am I screwing myself somehow? How long till I lose this job? Will it be another week? Month? The summer? Should I be waiting?”
But today...I realized, despite all of that, I have to get out of this job. It is completely and totally, 100% unhealthy here. And I’d like to give you possibly the most accurate way of telling you just what I mean.
See, today was a bad day. It was a very bad day. But this isn’t really about me. Hear me out:
At around 9:30-9:50 am, we were sitting at work, hanging out. This is a lull that we get, every morning, before all of the tour buses start coming in and we get busier. We were sitting on some picnic tables, talking about some random subject, when all of a sudden, we heard a loud....louder than normal in these situations...LOUD crash.
We looked over in time to see a black car flip, a white SUV flip over the black car and then flip 2-3 more times down the road.
To start, this road is very dangerous. Accidents, fatal accidents, are happening way too often on this road. People do not go the speed limit, even though it’s a highway, there are businesses along this road and we have seen, daily, people not paying attention, not looking, pulling out of the business in front of someone, causing that someone to have to slam on their brakes, pulling in to the business and people behind them not paying attention, excessive speed, alcohol related accidents....this road is not safe.
So we hear the loud crash...I’ve seen car accidents before, I’ve heard them before, several times. This crash was insanely loud; moreso than any other accident I’ve ever seen or heard.
We knew this was a bad one.
We all ran over. Most of my co-workers ran to the black car so I ran past it to the white SUV. As I passed the black car, I heard girls inside screaming and crying.
I got to the SUV, the driver had pulled himself out of his sunroof, (because he couldn’t get his door open), and while conscious, was not “there”. He was in shock, panicky, bleeding and was not fully aware that he was trying to climb down his SUV that was crumpled, glass everywhere, metal everywhere while he was already in a lot of pain. I told him to stop moving around. Stop moving! He said, “Didn’t they see me?!” Then he said, “My friend! In the back!”
I tried to see in the back for his friend but there were airbags all over the place in this vehicle. Couldn’t see a thing. I just started calling out, “Friend? Hey...friend? Friend!” His friend stumbled back towards the SUV as he had already climbed out and let me know he was there, no one else was in the car. I eventually got those two to the side of the road, stop moving around!!!!!! and some older gentlemen who were in a car going who knows what direction had stopped and were helping them. The friend was complaining of pain in his shoulder and the driver was in pain all over the place and collapsed to the ground. I left him with the older gentlemen.
I then walked over towards the black car where some co-workers were, (the rest were instructed to stop traffic on both sides of this wreck), and saw one of my co-workers trying to do CPR. He was up WAY too high, not in the right place but he was trying. One of the girls, (there were four total in the black car), who had been sitting in the back seat, driver’s side, next to this girl on the ground getting CPR, had gotten out and came around to her friend on the ground. She was in absolute hysterics. She kept screaming, “Rachel, wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”
Rachel wasn’t waking up.
It was pretty apparent that she was dead. Rachel was dead. Her body was having reflexes and blood and something else, was gushing out of her mouth. So it looked like she was gasping for breath every 15 or so seconds. But her eyes...fixed and dilated. Her face? Bluish purple. There was no pulse. But at the time, even though you know this, you keep trying and keep coaxing the person. I stood there, holding the friend’s shoulder, and saying, “C’mon Rachel, keep breathing, keep going, doing good girl, the help is coming, don’t give up, keep going....” all the while thinking, “this is not breathing...this is reflex.” Someone handed me a glove and I put that on and tried to clear her mouth and airway of the gushing blood and whatever else that was, which...impossible. Her friends were screaming, crying, freaking out..(of course)..and the lady on the phone, 911, eventually told the co-worker to stop compressions. We continued to stay near her, another co-worker holding her head to the side so the stuff could come out of her mouth and not go back down her throat and choke her. (We didn’t want to accept it either.)
Finally, the ambulance showed, they went straight to Rachel on the ground. I heard one say, “We can’t do anything if we can’t get a pulse.” Meanwhile, the helicopter that had been called to rush her to emergency, was circling over head. We had cleared everyone out of the way so that they could land in the parking lot and road.
Then...they didn’t land.
A paramedic came over to the girl I was holding and asked her if she was ok. She had the start of some serious bruises from the seat belt, some blood from somewhere but seemed ok. I told the paramedic, because this girl had told me this after I pulled her away from Rachel after the paramedics showed up, that she wanted to ride in the helicopter with Rachel.
He looked at her and said, “Sweetie. There is no ride. She’s gone.”
OY!
They asked me to stay with her, the friend, and I just held her around her shoulders and let her cry. She said it didn’t feel real, she can’t believe it’s happening, she cried, she sobbed, she repeated all those things again....and there wasn’t a dang thing I could do for her. So I just held her, rubbed her back or head and said, “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
The driver of the black car was also fairly ok. Her parents were actually going to meet them at our park to go on a boat ride so they were there, within minutes. The road had been blocked but they knew that the “kids” had gone to our place and they walked up to the scene, to see, “just in case”. Unfortunately, it was their kid and her friends. The mom and dad sat with the driver, I sat with another girl and there was still one girl in the car, front passenger seat, who couldn’t get out. Her leg was badly broken and she couldn’t move. She was also in hysterics.
They eventually took everyone to the hospital except Rachel. Coroner had to come for her, accident scene investigators had to come out, the road was closed for 5 hours.
Now, because this road has had many accidents on it in the past, we know that when something like this happens, it’s going to be hours.
So let me tell you how the boss reacted to all of this. When Rachel was still on the ground, when we were still trying, in spite of it all, to revive her, the boss actually said, “Well, I guess we should just close and start drinking then.” Not only was it what he said, it was how he said it. It was the absolute height of disrespect. There was a girl, lying dead on the road right in front of his business and THAT is what he has to say, in a sarcastic tone? Because he was going to lose some business today?
If that wasn’t bad enough, when the paramedics and police did get there, he asked them how long it was going to take them to clear out, he had a business to run and he was losing money.
I am not kidding you.
Some of those new people, the “golden children” as they are called, who are favored and really liked the place and the boss? They cursed about him, later, called him a prick, a douchebag, a mother fucker, said they totally lost respect for him and that all he cares about is his money.
I told one of them, “NOW you are seeing what some of us “old timers” already know and have seen. Now you are getting it. Now you see the reality of this place.” And they did. It clicked for them, big time. Now they understand why us “old timers” do the things we do, the way we do.
And now, even more than ever, I realize that getting OUT of there is about the smartest thing I’m going to do. I don’t know what will happen to me once I get up there, I don’t know how hard it will be, I don’t know if I’ll succeed. But I do know, I cannot work for someone who could look at a dead girl, in front of his business, and not care at all.
Now, what happened....unfortunately, it’s the girl driver’s fault. Not the dead girl, she was totally innocent. The black car was driving west, and were turning in to our business to go on an airboat ride. The driver’s mother and father were behind her, a few minutes, and they were going to meet up and have a fun day. They were all from the UK, on vacation. They were coming to have fun.
The driver turned, RIGHT in front of that SUV who was traveling east. The SUV didn’t even have time to hit the brakes. The SUV slammed in to the right side of the car, right at the back of the passenger side. Right where Rachel was sitting. Rachel took the full impact of a large vehicle traveling from 60-65mph.
They hit so hard, the black car flipped, the SUV flipped OVER the black car and flipped two or three more times down the road. It was all on camera.
And it affected almost every single person at work...with some exceptions who are soul less and do not care about anyone but themselves. (Not just the boss, either--Bitch with her fake tears, Mr. Grumpy Pants and PH.) And every single person, who has a soul, said the same. None of us can get Rachel’s face out of our heads.
So....RIP, Rachel. She was 26.
And screw this place and screw the boss.
