This is an incident happened four months after I first came to US to Purdue University for my Matsers, in 2004. I was still not accustomed to the lifestyle, studies and lab-work here then.
On a fine afternoon I set out to the credit union (Bank) and it started raining. I had to borrow umbrella from downstairs from my chinese lab mate. On the way out found a person walking without umbrella and told him to join in mine.
The chain of events this simple act of friendship triggered was something that I could have never anticipated.
This guy was from Eritrea by name Bereket. We got introduced and he started describing about his thesis work and in no time we reached the road. All of a sudden he got out of my umbrella and rushed to cross the road. And a car coming down from the second lane hit him!
I didn't exactly see what happened, but found Bereket falling into the divider lane.
Many cars were rushing down the other lane and some stopped. After couple of seconds I reached him and tried to hold him up. He was lying down and crying out saying that he is going to die. I didn't see any injury or blood and told him it will be okay. In no time ambulance and police arrived and they picked him up. People never came to look what happened (much unlike Indian situation when people would have thronged there). Some guys from inside the car called me and gave their phone number and told to call them if needed (I didn't know why they did that).
After the cops took him into the ambulance I asked cop whether I have to do anything else. He told me to come to hospital, and since I was new to the place, he took me in his police car to St. Elizabeth hospital, pretty far from campus. Cops were very friendly and I told them that in our country they use to scare us a lot (my acquaintance with police was not new, had earlier experience with Kerala Police back home with strikes and struggles while doing UG when I was actively involved in student politcs; will write about that later:-).
At the hospital, they considered me as the only friend of Bereket and told me to sign some papers for his treatment and checkup. Meanwhile Bereket was refusing to do some tests telling that he doesn't have any problem now and those check-ups will be expensive. So docs asked me to convince him that those were very much needed for a accident victim. I didn't know how to convince him, so went up to him and told what the docs wanted and requested him to do at least the minimum tests needed.
After he was taken for further tests, I came out and found the driver of the car who hit him. He was a real gentleman and told me he was coming after celebrating his wife's B'day along with the kids and was working in a company near Walmart grocery store. He came to the hospital to see how Bereket was doing. Instead of running away from the spot, he stopped and came to the hospital!.Earlier, the cops had told me that they can drop me back and warned me that going alone will not be good since that is a bad neighborhood. Since the tests for Bereket will take several hours to get done, this driver of the car (I don't remember his name) told he could drop me back to the campus and also promised me that he will take care of Berket once check ups are done. Though I was sad to witness an accident, I was happy to see such a good person who cared a lot.
Next day I called this gentleman and he informed that Bereket is safe at home and nothing to worry.
Couple of days later I got a call from Bereket's health insurance company telling me that I was the sole witness of the incident and asked me to recount in my own words. I had hard time explaining things in english and somehow I managed to do so. I thought I had given a very good description and will allow them to give him his claim. Being the witness, cops also called me and asked me to come to police station for the same reason. Since I had no idea where police station was located, I told I can come to the accident location. They came there and took my signature after I explained what I saw.
I didn't know that by my signing stuff and recounting incident in the way 'they' wanted it, I was screwing up the graduate life of this guy from a poor African country.
Will conclude this in next post..:-D
On a fine afternoon I set out to the credit union (Bank) and it started raining. I had to borrow umbrella from downstairs from my chinese lab mate. On the way out found a person walking without umbrella and told him to join in mine.
The chain of events this simple act of friendship triggered was something that I could have never anticipated.
This guy was from Eritrea by name Bereket. We got introduced and he started describing about his thesis work and in no time we reached the road. All of a sudden he got out of my umbrella and rushed to cross the road. And a car coming down from the second lane hit him!
I didn't exactly see what happened, but found Bereket falling into the divider lane.
Many cars were rushing down the other lane and some stopped. After couple of seconds I reached him and tried to hold him up. He was lying down and crying out saying that he is going to die. I didn't see any injury or blood and told him it will be okay. In no time ambulance and police arrived and they picked him up. People never came to look what happened (much unlike Indian situation when people would have thronged there). Some guys from inside the car called me and gave their phone number and told to call them if needed (I didn't know why they did that).
After the cops took him into the ambulance I asked cop whether I have to do anything else. He told me to come to hospital, and since I was new to the place, he took me in his police car to St. Elizabeth hospital, pretty far from campus. Cops were very friendly and I told them that in our country they use to scare us a lot (my acquaintance with police was not new, had earlier experience with Kerala Police back home with strikes and struggles while doing UG when I was actively involved in student politcs; will write about that later:-).
At the hospital, they considered me as the only friend of Bereket and told me to sign some papers for his treatment and checkup. Meanwhile Bereket was refusing to do some tests telling that he doesn't have any problem now and those check-ups will be expensive. So docs asked me to convince him that those were very much needed for a accident victim. I didn't know how to convince him, so went up to him and told what the docs wanted and requested him to do at least the minimum tests needed.
After he was taken for further tests, I came out and found the driver of the car who hit him. He was a real gentleman and told me he was coming after celebrating his wife's B'day along with the kids and was working in a company near Walmart grocery store. He came to the hospital to see how Bereket was doing. Instead of running away from the spot, he stopped and came to the hospital!.Earlier, the cops had told me that they can drop me back and warned me that going alone will not be good since that is a bad neighborhood. Since the tests for Bereket will take several hours to get done, this driver of the car (I don't remember his name) told he could drop me back to the campus and also promised me that he will take care of Berket once check ups are done. Though I was sad to witness an accident, I was happy to see such a good person who cared a lot.
Next day I called this gentleman and he informed that Bereket is safe at home and nothing to worry.
Couple of days later I got a call from Bereket's health insurance company telling me that I was the sole witness of the incident and asked me to recount in my own words. I had hard time explaining things in english and somehow I managed to do so. I thought I had given a very good description and will allow them to give him his claim. Being the witness, cops also called me and asked me to come to police station for the same reason. Since I had no idea where police station was located, I told I can come to the accident location. They came there and took my signature after I explained what I saw.
I didn't know that by my signing stuff and recounting incident in the way 'they' wanted it, I was screwing up the graduate life of this guy from a poor African country.
Will conclude this in next post..:-D
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