Last week, I saw a pedestrian get hit by a car.

A few minutes prior, I was sitting at Chick-fil-A with my two boys, enjoying breakfast. My oldest had just gotten back from church camp, so I was asking him questions about his time there. He’s a boy, so he doesn’t always offer a lot of talk, but this time, since it had been a few days since I had last seen him, he had a lot to tell me about.

After we finished eating, we hopped in the car and started toward home.

Not even one block later, I saw a young man run across the street, going what looked like as fast as he could run. He jetted across the two northbound lanes (the direction I was heading). I remember thinking, “Wow, he is running really fast.”

Then, I saw a white car coming from the other direction.

It was like the whole thing was in slow motion for me. I saw him run. I saw the median in the middle of the road that he could have stopped at. But I also could tell he wasn’t planning to stop. He was planning to keep going all the way across the other two lanes with southbound traffic.

He kept running and ran right in front of the car going south. I remember letting out a cry and saying, “He’s going to get hit!”

I don’t know if the driver of that car even had time to put on his brakes. It happened so quickly.

But I saw the young man fly through the air.

And I saw him land on the road.

That image will probably be stuck in my head for a long time.

He just lay there. Motionless. 

I pulled out my phone, called 911, and turned my car around. I remember thinking, “I don’t know what to do, but I can’t just keep driving.”

Then, with my boys beside me, we crossed the same road he had just crossed and waited while the police and medical personnel worked on the young man.

The police officer asked me to wait since I had witnessed the accident, so that’s what we did. We waited. And we prayed. And we held hands.

And my heart broke.

It broke for the young man who had just gotten hit by the car, the man whose life was changed in a second because of a mistake that anyone could easily make. It broke for his family. It broke for the person driving the car, who would undoubtedly feel so much guilt, even though it was clear from my perspective that there was nothing he could have done and that it was an accident. And it broke for me and for my boys who were witnesses to such a terrible accident.

They loaded the young man into the ambulance, we gave our testimonies, and then we left the scene.

But I don’t think I’m going to forget about it for a long time. The images we saw…the fear I felt…the lessons I learned…will probably stick with me for a long time.

One of the things I just kept thinking was, “That could have been me who hit him.” If I had left only a minute or two earlier, I could have been driving across that patch of road when he ran across. And though I don’t suspect the driver was being negligent at all (it looked like he didn’t have much time to react), I was reminded anew why I need to keep my eyes on the road at all times when I’m driving.

It only took one second for that young man to run in front of the car. One second that changed his life. One second that changed the driver’s life.

There’s no way for any of us to know who or what might jet in front of us while we are driving, so I want to be as ready as I possibly can be, because if there’s anything I can do to make sure I never witness something like that again, I want to do what I can.

(Again, I’m NOT in any way suggesting the driver was negligent. From my vantage point, he wasn’t AT ALL. He was simply driving…doing what each of us does on a daily basis. He wasn’t negligent. He wasn’t distracted. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.)

It later came out the young man crossing the road was a teenager. When I first learned that, my heart hurt even more. He was so young. Not even an adult yet.

As much as I hate that my children had to witness such a tragic accident, I’m also glad that it gave me a chance to explain to them how important it is to look both ways before crossing the road (and to look twice).

I suspect that the young man who was hit just didn’t see the car coming from the south. He probably looked but missed the one car that was in his path. I don’t think he was being careless. I think his eyes just missed the car.

It’s so easy for our eyes to miss things. That’s why I tell my kids to not just look one time, but to look twice.

As parents, I think many of us feel a lot of fear. I’m afraid I’m doing something wrong. I’m afraid I’m messing up my kids. I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect them from something.

This accident reminded me that there are very real dangers. Accidents do happen. People do get hurt or even killed. Lives are changed in an instance.

And though this reality does make me afraid, more than anything, it reminds me to make today count.

That young man probably didn’t realize last week was his last week on earth. His family probably didn’t realize it either.

And in all likelihood, we don’t know when our last week is going to be either. I don’t want to waste the time I have.

As those of you who have read my stuff before know, I write to process. So there’s not a pretty conclusion for this post. A family is grieving. A driver is likely very distraught every time he gets in a car. There’s not a pretty bow to put on this post. But my hope is, if you read all the way through this post, that you’ll do three things:

1. Be careful when you drive. Put your phone down. Stop looking in the mirror. Keep your eyes on the road.
2. Live today fully.
3. Pray for those involved in this accident and for those of us who witnessed it.