Golden Ratio

On trusting the world with our loved ones

Sometimes you just know there’s going to be an accident.

My 16-year-old daughter and I are driving south for a day in Manhattan together: soup dumplings, her favorite bakery, the Natural History Museum. I let her drive for a bit, but she’s daunted by the Taconic State Parkway’s narrow lanes and curves, so we swap places again.

I’m doing 60mph in the middle lane. A Tesla swoops in front of us from behind at high speed, missing the front of our car by inches, going 90mph easily. He zooms ahead, weaving, narrowly missing another car. 

“Jackass,” I say.

Then comes a Dodge Durango at a similar speed, blazing past us, tailgating another car by less than a foot before swerving around them, roaring after the Tesla. They’re going to crash—I can feel it.

Thirty seconds later, brake lights are stacking up in front of us. I spot the Tesla, off the right shoulder in the grass, all of its airbags deployed. There’s a heavily damaged SUV farther on, in the right lane.

I swing the car over, pop the hazards on, and tell my daughter I’ll be back. I check the Tesla driver. A 50-ish man in a dress shirt and slacks. I assess him rapidly and he’s non-critical, so I move on to the SUV. 

It’s clearly rolled several times, the sides and the roof heavily damaged, all the windows blown, curtain and front airbags down, so it’s hard to see in. I realize now this is not the Durango that came past us, but another vehicle.

I tell a bystander who’s on her mobile with 911 that I’m an off-duty EMT. I lean under the curtain airbag and talk with the driver, and he tells me, “I’m okay, but my wife is hurt badly.” I relay this to the woman speaking with 911 dispatch.

I pop the dented back driver’s side door with a bit of effort and climb into the back seat, which is full of glass. There’s blood on the leather seats and armrest. I assess the woman, who is delirious, and has a large hematoma (a.k.a. goose egg) on the right side of her head. There’s no serious, active bleeding. She knows her name, but not where she is, or what happened. She keeps asking where her children are. (They are, thankfully, safe at home.)

A medic arrives with firefighters, and they pry the passenger door open. We get a c-collar on the woman, and within two minutes she’s out, loaded up, and en route to the trauma center. 

Another ambulance arrives, and I hop in to clean up. There’s blood on my arms and pants. As I’m cleaning up, two EMTs lead the Tesla driver into the ambulance through the back doors. He’s seated on the stretcher while they take his vitals. I wonder if he feels anything about all this. Maybe it’s too soon. I leave before I’m tempted to say something.

The state troopers tell me multiple people reported seeing the Tesla and Durango racing. After giving my contact info, my daughter and I are southbound again. I check in with her, and she’s okay.

A few miles down the road, we see the disabled Durango, which has fled the scene. A burly 30-something man is standing in front of the SUV on his phone. The rear bumper is hanging off, the back left tire flat. My daughter gets his license plate and I call it into 911. The troopers are en route to pick him up.

We continue south, toward NYC, our day together, the dumplings, the bakery, the Natural History Museum. I can’t stop thinking about my daughter driving on her own, out in this world. People who race, flip cars, flee scenes.

She puts some music on, but my nervous system’s still jangled, so I tell her I need to turn it down a little, for now. We’re silent for a bit.

“Are you thinking about the accident?” she asks.

“I am. Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she says. “Does this make you more worried about me driving on my own?”

“Of course,” I tell her.

“You know that I’m smart, and I’ll be very safe out there,” she says.

“You’re so smart, and I know you will. It’s the other people I worry about.”

There’s a steaming plate of soup dumplings in front of us. My daughter is rubbing her chopsticks together, sanding them down. I want to enjoy our day together, but something about this accident happening so near to us—so near to her—it’s rattled me.

“You’re still thinking about it,” she says, plopping a dumpling onto her soup spoon, sprinkling it with chili oil. 

“I’m sorry. I was.” 

“You know,” she says, “we do all we can, but in the end, we can’t control everything.”

I laugh and tell her, “You’re exactly right.”

I forget so many of the things I’ve told her over the years, trying to prepare her for the world. Now, sending her out there, I’m the one who feels unprepared.

Our afternoon is full of hazelnut creampuffs, then butterfly and dinosaur exhibits, followed by a sunset swim in the hotel’s rooftop pool. My mind flicks back a few times to the accident, wondering about the woman, hoping those two guys were arrested. Then I snap back. Here she is, right in front of me, taking everything in. Laughing. Enjoying. 

Over a late dinner, she tells me how much the accident gave her hope, which surprises me. 

“You said it’s the other people you worry about,” she says, “but look how many people stopped to help.”

I’d been brooding over two thoughtless men who hurt someone, but she saw, instead, all the drivers who stopped, and then volunteer ambulances and firetrucks—at least two dozen people there to help out.

Sending my sweet girl out onto those roads is terrifying, but the ratio that day—let’s call it 12:1 —gives me hope, too.

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