Following a crash in the US, police usually gather and try to determine exactly what happened. They may interview several witnesses, receive a variety of stories and spend some time analyzing tire tracks, paint smudges and other informational clues. In the critical seconds just after an accident, witnesses may turn into heroes or helpers as they dial 911 and provide any assistance they know how. While the police are gathering evidence and redirecting traffic, paramedics are on the scene to evaluate the injured. Firefighters or tow trucks may even arrive to clear the wreckage.
It was the evening of the Eid and we were waiting with Ousmane for the bus to the airport. 10:30 on a Friday night. Traffic was light and in Kinshasa this usually means fast. With no apparent speed limits and no way to enforce them, drivers take to driving as fast as the open roads allow- on a clear, late night such as this one, that could easily mean speeds into the 70’s or 80’s. We were standing outside the Air Maroc agency when the scraping of metal and squealing of tires caught our attention. I looked over and saw a large white SUV that appeared to be speeding away. A small red taxi spun across the road and a larger blue taxi van skidded into a turn and appeared to dump half of its occupants out the open sliding door. If the police had interviewed me then, I would have said the white SUV had something to do with the crash. Later, I wasn’t so sure. Nothing really seemed too clear. The red taxi was in a very odd position and between the three of us, we couldn’t agree on which direction it had originally been traveling.
There is nothing quite like the deep and solid thud of an impact to make your heart rise up and your pulse take notice. My stomach immediately began to churn when wailing followed. Clearly there were some injuries. Several large and angry crowds assembled, one around the people on the ground where the blue van had hit and the other around the driver of the red taxi. Police arrived on the scene, by foot, within five or so minutes. All I could think about was how out of order everything seemed to be. I knew an ambulance was not on its way. The police made their own crowd around the driver and there was a lot of hustling, bustling, and jerking going on. The driver was grabbed by his two elbows and pulled back and forth. He was dragged off in the direction of the police station a few blocks away, the red car left at an angle blocking the road.
While this was going on, an onlooker- or perhaps fellow passenger- escorted a woman across the street. She appeared to have blood on her shirt. She barely made it to the curb before collapsing to the ground. A crowd formed around her as well. While I felt a sickening resignation about the futility of the Congolese emergency system, Ousmane was busy telling us that in Guinea he could dial 777 and receive an emergency response or 1212 for an ambulance. I kept wondering how the scene would play out---do the injured ever get help? What would they do with the body of someone who died?
Back across the street, the police had assembled again, this time around a few guys by the blue van. One was clearly a kid who put up an excellent fight, received a slap in the face and remained undeterred. He was dragged down the street by three or four policeman—a completely different direction than the police station and previous driver. I could see his silhouette kicking up dirt and bouncing around as he fought the whole way. It was still not clear to me if there were more injured, if people had gotten hit by or thrown from the van or how the accident had occurred exactly. A large battalion tanker passed us armed with flashing lights and men with guns. These large trucks remind me of the boxy type of fire trucks but they are much larger, more square and drove right by the accident without the slightest concern. The injured woman continue to lie on the roadside unaided.
I felt dizzy with my helplessness and an eerie sense of distance. I watched horrifying scenes continue to play out on the now partially blocked boulevard. Taxis stopped and stalled in the middle of the road, passengers got in and out and ran across the street as SUV’s whizzed by. Life as usual, I suppose, but the dangerous stupidity of it all was so much more illuminated.
Finally, the woman was carried into a taxi with cries of “Hospital, hospital.” No one got in with her, though Kazadi had run over to the crowd twice, trying to entice action. There was no siren, no EMT team working to stop the bleeding and check her vitals, just one lone woman in a taxi that turned back across the devilish boulevard and down a dusty dirt road.
By this time, the police were now dealing with the inconvenient placement of the taxi. They had begun pushing it over to the side of the road and even lifted it together in order to straighten it out a bit. The front fender was completely smashed in and partly impeding the tire movement.
Ousmane’s bus began loading baggage and soon after he showed his documents and boarded. We waved goodbye, got in our car and began the short drive home. Mohamed was especially talkative, he gets that way when he’s trying to think something through. He was clearly as disturbed as I, though neither of us actually saw anything. It was what we didn’t see that was so troubling. Even as I write this, I feel a useless pressure just below the surface. The order of events couldn’t have been more OUT of order.
