Accident

The news spread like wildfire this morning. There had been a road accident on nearby Ecclesall Road at the junction that leads to our local Co-op supermarket and to Phoebe and Margot's nursery school. Twenty minutes before the accident, Frances had dropped Phoebe off at our house before taking Margot to the nursery school for her last day session of the week.

At first there was some confusion about what had happened but as the day advanced, the information became clearer. A sixteen year old cyclist on his way to school had collided with a car and had then been jettisoned into the path of an oncoming lorry.

At one point, there were four police vehicles at the scene and three ambulances. A helicopter landed in nearby Endcliffe Park but it proved unnecessary for the boy was soon sped to hospital in a regular road ambulance. He remains in hospital in what a spokesperson has called "a critical condition".

The busy A road was sealed off until 4pm. Shirley passed by the scene an hour later to pick up Margot and reported that there was still blood on the tarmac.

The whole thing is naturally a nightmare for the car driver, the lorry driver, the teenage lad's family and of course the injured victim himself who may or may not survive. 

There but for the grace of God go any of us.

I am reminded of the time that my late brother Paul killed a teenage boy in rural Ireland. He was overtaking a school bus that had just pulled in at the kerb when a fifteen year old schoolboy shot out from round the front of the bus without looking. There was nothing that Paul could do. The boy died at the scene.

I don't know the name of today's accident victim but I wish him well and hope that he survives this day of horror without great physical impairment. Life is such a precious gift and he ought to have most of his life ahead of him. If I were a praying person, I would pray for him.