A last look at San Francisco

When I wrote my last entry in the site I had no idea of the events that would befall me in the next few hours.

I decided that as I was bored in San Francisco and not heeding my 'wonderful' sister's advice(?) about going out while in America I would go to see another movie on my last night. There were no good shows on. On my way out I nearly took my camera to picture any of S.F.'s strange events that might take place in front of me but decided against it. I only got a few blocks away from the hostel when approaching a set of pedestrian traffic lights I spotted a strange scene. A boy with baseball cap holding onto a car through an open car window as it sat at the traffic lights. He was balanced on, what I later found out the name of, the runner board of a pick-up truck. I thought this was very strange and as the lights changed and I moved forward to cross the road the truck sped off. Crash, Bang was all I heard and I gasped as I turned round to see the truck speeding off without the boy on the side. The truck had after leaving the lights smashed the boy (about 18 I would reckon at most) into the side of a parked car on the other side of the road. I rushed over to see - half expecting to find a bloody mess of a skull or a dead body. There was no blood but the boy was not moving. I've done a First Aid course but not much of it came flooding back as I tried to calm my fears to be able to deal with the boy. I asked if he was all right, if he could hear me and at that he opened his eyes but did not move. At least, I thought, he's alive! Other people standing at other sides of the road then came forward to see the scene I asked someone to phone an ambulance and then noticed that the oncoming traffic from the next sequence of lights were too interested in seeing what was going on to realise they were almost about to run over the boy - so I took to directing traffic. I suppose luck was with me that it was a one way street or I could have caused real bother! Others then began the argument that I've seen a few times after an accident about the proper procedures of looking after someone especially if more than one of them suspects their training in First Aid has made them a wizz kid. No-one listened to me so I stuck to directing traffic and shouting at those wanting to cause a pile-up as the arguers didn't seem to notice the rest of the traffic. After about 5 or so mins the Fire Brigade turned up, then Fire Rescue, then police and then 2 more Fire Engines turned up. I suppose the fact that about 2 or 3 people had called this in an attendent was sent for each call made. There were at least 4 of us that had seen the incident though none of us got the license plate or what the driver looked like. At the time before none of that had seemed important as we did not know what was to come. In the end once the police started asking questions to people in particular I was left as the only one telling the story and it was my name that was taken as witness as everyone else had left the scene with their names intact.
I was asked if I might be able to identify the car, I thought I might have but after been taken in a squad car to see the supposed vehicle I could not have said honestly if it was. The pick-up truck that the police were considering certainly looked like the car that had been at the incident but there was no way I could have been positive. All in all the boy was taken to hospital, my name was taken and the police were left trying to figure out if the kid had been trying to hyjack the truck or what had happened. They were very nice and even offered to drop me at the cinema afterwards but I didn't want it for 2 reasons. 1:I didn't want to be seen in a squad car at the cinema, 2:I needed to clear my head. But I was totally shocked.
Leaving the cinema after seeing a comedy I was still in a bit of a shock and quite scared but I walked really quickly passed the scene and thankfully because I had a cold I was taking cough syrup so that knocked me out for sleeping. In the morning I was really busy as I was leaving for a 24 hour ride to Flagstaff (a good entrance place to see the Grand Canyon) and it took my brain a while to remember what had happened the night before. I think it's all over the police don't need any more information off of me thankfully so that is the end of my trip to San Francisco.