By now, most of you are aware or have seen the video of the little 2 year old girl in China being struck by a panel van in the street. The video shows her being hit, rolled over with both sets of tires, the truck moving off and not stopping. Then it gets worse. People pass by and glance at her and keep walking. And worse again. Another vehicle hits her a second time. Still no one stays at the scene and people keep ignoring her plight.
Finally someone scoops her body off the side of the road and takes her away. She is still alive, barely. I have since learned that the driver was caught, thanks to the video that captured the entire thing happening. Then I learned that he ran over her with his back tires on purpose to make sure she was "good and dead". Apparently, dead is better than injured as he has to pay less compensation to her family. Had she had medical bills, he would have been responsible to pay those for her family.
As I write these words, the shock of all of this is still processing in my brain. I find the entire thing almost impossible to comprehend. Such utter disregard for human life. The driver was not even going very fast. Surely he had time to stop, to brake before he struck her. Even if it was an accident, the fact that he did not get out of his van to help her, again, strikes me as beyond inhumane. A small innocent child treated in this manner is the most appalling of atrocities. I know this is not the first time, nor will it be the last that someone of my own human race has acted in such a barbaric manner. It does nothing to comfort me.
It makes me feel ashamed to be part of the collective. As I try to understand how anyone could behave in this manner, I ask myself many questions. Could this happen in my country? Is it a race thing? Is it a sex thing (girls having little worth in some cultures)? Is it a complete nation lacking in any soul or conscience? Was this perhaps some sort of divine intervention for that poor child - will she be better off dead than live amongst such a heartless tribe?
If you do the math, the number of people that did not help her far outweigh the one person who finally did stop to come to her aid as she lay limp and bleeding at the side of the road, alone, vulnerable, in pain, helpless. What brought them to this point in their lives? What atrocities have been wrought upon them to leave them in such an unfeeling zombie-like state? And how does one begin to try and fix them? Can they be healed?
It makes me angry. It stuns me. It fills my heart with grief. Yet, my life goes on. I will wake up tomorrow and be grateful for the sunrise, for my daughter sleeping peacefully in her cozy cocoon of down and feathers, for food that is plentiful, for my surroundings and my shelter from any storm, for my good health.
What I will be especially grateful for though is this. I will appreciate the fact that if I ever accidentally struck a small child on the road, I would stop my car and do everything in my power to help her....or him....or even if it was a dog or a cat. I would take responsibility and my heart would ache for what had happened. I am thankful I would FEEL something. For that, in my mind is what sets us apart from the animal kingdom. Perhaps there are still people out there in this world that walk and talk like humans, but really are not quite that evolved yet.
Surely, the people involved in this incident are not long out of the cave.
Perhaps that is it.
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1 comment:
Hi Deb,
I'm catching up on your blogs - they're wonderful! In sad response to this one, not long ago there was a similar type accident in our own Toronto neighbourhood. The 19-year-old son of friends of mine was crossing a busy street at about 3 a.m. when he was struck by a car and left for dead. His body was picked up a couple of hours later and rushed to the hospital. He's had multiple surgeries and is now in rehab, but his life will never be the same. The hit-and-run driver is still out there driving. Yes, such things even happen in our own supposedly civilized backyards.
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