Contributing Factors

Our lives can be broken down into smaller and smaller fragments. 
A year. a day. a minute. a second. And each of those bits contain all the information that we had at the time to make choices. Choices that can be insignificant, or can mean the difference between life and death.  

A group of riders from a nearby stable were enjoying an evening ride on a balmy December day. They ride here often, down the country roads. Mostly, they stay off the pavement and we slow down to pass them so we don't spook the horses. Its a pleasant part of living in the country.  

It was about 5:30 when the accident happened. You know that time of day, when the sunlight slants steeply thru the trees and creates that strobe effect of flashing shadows and light. It also makes every speck of dirt and smeary place on your car windshield look like dense fog.  

Was the driver irritated? distracted? He had likely driven that same road 100 times. Maybe it's like most things we get used to, and roads in particular, the more we drive those curves the faster we can take them. We know when to let up on the gas and when to brake as we approach them.  We live here. We know the road, don't we?  

There isn't much shoulder on that particular curve. The ditches alternate between pretty deep and steep and rough rocky slopes. Thawed mud offers fairly poor footing even for a horse that has been that way before. (because, like us, they learn the road, too).  
In an instant, that particular combination of factors brought tragedy to their lives.  
The car rounds the curve and they are there.  6 riders.  On the roadway hugging the edge of the pavement, treading the fine line between the roadway and the ditch? In the ditch itself? Side by side or single file? 

The impact was brutal.  3 horses down. 3 riders thrown.
The car skids to a stop. Screams in the dark. Shock. Blood. 
And a 911 call.  
The lights of the first responders and the ambulances contrasted sharply with the festive Christmas lights nearby.  Blending in for a second, and then so horribly not.
Within long minutes the county road was blocked solid with police cars and emergency vehicles.   
Red strobe lights created an instant landing pad in our little field for the Air Evac Lifeteam that was on the way.
One of the girls was seriously injured. Did the horse fall on her? Was she thrown free of the animal and landed hard on the rocky ground?  Another was sitting up, and a 3rd...a young man...was holding his leg and yelling out.

The downdraft created by the helicopter created a wind chill I didn't expect.   The car driver stood motionless and watched, cell phone in hand.  Tensed up, with fear? with anger? with the thought of how a split second had forever changed his life, too?

No medical personnel waited on him. No emergency people talked to him.
I asked him if he was OK. Did he need anything. No, he didn't. He paced.   His friend who was with him was defensive...it all happened so fast...they came around the corner and the riders were there...there was nothing they could do!
  
I can't say if speed was a factor, or if they hugged the inside of that curve when they came around. Were they off the road even a little? The stories varied. The human memory is not very precise.

He was upset about his totaled car. For a young person who lives in the country the car is everything. And sometimes people in a tragic situation have to focus on something. Anything. I don't think he could bear to look at the carnage he had inflicted. 
  
After the ambulances and air rescue had taken the injured people away, and the stock trailer had taken the 2 skinned and bleeding horses back to the barn, there was still one life left in that ditch. The black horse couldn't get up. She struggled briefly, and then gave up. Waiting. Two young people held and comforted her.
"Leave her alone!" they screamed. "No pictures!"
The vet advised there was nothing that could be done. The girls sobbed as they comforted their fallen friend.
I had to walk away before I heard the gunshot.
One fatality.