As a woman and a mother, I’m entitled to get emotional at times. No funny stories from the desert about brothels today. No pictures of curiously camouflaged cars or engineers mooning me. Today, I feel I’m entitled to occasionally steer away from my off-the-wall day-to-day experiences and get in-touch with my heart and soul.
Something deep inside made me detour today and leave the roads that I commonly travel on to seek out a site where, a little over a week ago, two young teenagers from France were tragically killed in a rollover accident.
It wasn’t a morbid action on my part. Instead, it was a motherly thing to do. It was as if I wanted to express my sorrow and bid these young strangers a loving goodbye. It was something that their own mothers may not have been able to do, as they were likely still in France after sending their teens for a once-in-a-lifetime organized tour of America. But like so many people riding in taxi cabs, tour vans such as this one and even private vehicles, only one person in the vehicle was wearing a seatbelt. Three were ejected when the driver fell asleep at the wheel and the van rolled.
There were no roadside crosses. Not yet, at least – just skid marks and lots of bright orange markings used by the crash scene investigators.
Earlier this summer ,while I was out hunting for test cars, there were three heat-related deaths in this region. I witnessed search parties leaving their base for search and hopefully rescue missions. I watched as an ambulance rushed a patient to an awaiting helicopter on a lonely airstrip – and then everything just sort of slowed down. Suddenly there was no rush anymore. When the helicopter didn’t take off for another 20 minutes, I knew that the unforgiving desert took yet another life.
Paying tribute
Yes, I play games in the desert – shooting test cars and acting tough, but the truth is I’ve shed many tears this year for all the people who weren’t prepared for the extreme desert conditions.
So here I am at this accident site. It’s been a week since the tragic crash that took the lives of 17-year-old Leah Baldaccini and Orane Pozzo Di Borgo, who was just 16. And the last reports I heard, 15-year-old Thibault Clement Yves Hamel was in critical condition in a medically induced coma, fighting for his life with an uncertain future. Three other teens were also hurt, as well as the driver who will never recover from the heartbreak of this accident.
I walked along the skid marks, along the orange police markings, watching passing cars that were oblivious to the recent deaths. All that remained at the site was a paramedic’s latex glove that attached itself to a dry and brittle shrub, a small shard of amber glass and a remnant of a recently cut (off) article of clothing.
It was only after I thought I left the accident site that I noticed, on the other side of the highway and maybe 150 feet off the road, two crude crosses made of wood sticks wrapped in white yarn, held in place by a small mound of rocks. Sitting on one mound was a broken pair of eye glasses and a fragment of metal which at one time was probably a watch band. And, to my astonishment, there was a basket of fresh flowers – pedals still soft and sparkling in the 110-degree sunshine. A loved one was here today.
Driving is serious business and all too often people forget all about that. Many Web sites sensationalize automobile accidents, especially those involving expensive cars or those involving celebrities. Maybe people today are desensitized, but we need to remember that a motor vehicle can be a deadly weapon and that over 40,000 people in this country die every year in car accidents. Fine, enough lecturing…
But five minutes after leaving the crosses, I passed four tour vans full of European teens on a once-in-a-lifetime tour of America. I prayed that they all had their seat belts fastened.
Words and photos by Brenda Priddy.
Don’t forget to check out Brenda’s first, second and third Spy Diaries entries.
