Appreciate life

I saw something that I will never forget today.

The accident must have happened just when I was leaving Sainsburys to walk to work, because by the time I reached the main crossing, a bus had halted in the middle of the main road and a small crowd was starting to gather.

An elderly man had been hit by a bus and was now face first on the road with his walking stick by his side, and there was so much blood, so much, just pooling around his head. A man, presumably the bus driver, was standing outside the bus, by the victim. The poor bus driver, imagine what he must be going through.Someone else was holding the victim's head, trying to stop the bleeding but blood just kept seeping through his hand. A woman was trying to reassure him, talking to him, trying to keep him conscious, but he didn't seem to be responding. Another woman was on the phone calling for help, on the lookout for the direction in which sirens were coming from. 

For a while I just stood there, with other curious pedestrians, frozen,

thinking Oh my God, oh my God, there's too much blood coming from his head!
 What can I do, how can I help?!
How could I have helped? This man was in critical need of emergency care that none of us unskilled pedestrians could provide. 

Thank God by then an ambulance and police cars arrived and started tending to the scene,

and somehow my legs managed to unlock themselves and slowly walked myself to work with the image of the man and his walking stick stuck in my mind throughout my shift.

When I related this to my friend at work, 

she told me about how she witnessed her own father falling from the 5th floor to his death.

He had a heart attack while fixing the TV antennae. To think I felt sick with worry for this stranger whom I don't even know, I cannot imagine what she must have gone through.
Things like these, they stay with you for life.

I hope you are OK, wherever you are.