169: Jonathan took the wheel

Do you know how you would react, in an emergency situation? The first time I remember being put to the test with something like this is when I was 18 years old. I was just driving, by myself, on a sort of rural road here in Florida one morning. And as I drove down this road, I could see something odd up in the distance. It was a car, off the road – and it was upside down. Probably most of us have approached accident scenes like this. You’ll see one or two cars that have obviously crashed into each other, and you see fire trucks, and police cars, and probably an ambulance or two, to take care of the injured people. But as I approached this upside-down car, there was none of that. No emergency vehicles, no one walking around, just no activity at all. So, as I pulled over and got out of my car, I kind of assumed that this must have just happened. And 18-year-old me was thinking, I’m probably going to go over to this car, and find dead people inside. Or, people that might be still alive but they’re badly injured. And this was before cell phones so I couldn’t just call it in. I walked over to the car and got down on my hands and knees and looked inside. And I was happy to find that there was no one in that car. Whoever was driving had apparently already left the scene. And a few minutes later, a state trooper rolled up. He told me that someone else had called it in an hour or so earlier, so he was there to check it out and make a report. There were a lot of people who saw that car and just kept driving. And I get that – seeing or dealing with a potentially traumatic situation is not for everyone. Honestly I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with it either. My guest today, Jonathan, was put into an emergency situation like that once. He was the passenger in a moving car when he noticed that the driver, his cousin Paul, had passed out. They were gaining speed. And up ahead were pedestrians. Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/169 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners? Join our podcast Facebook group at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook (many of the podcast guests are there as well) Get every episode ad-free, AND get all the Raw Audio exclusive episodes to binge, by joining the other listeners at What Was That Like PLUS. Try What Was That Like PLUS free: iPhone: at the top of the What Was That Like podcast feed, click on “Try free” Android: on your phone, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/PLUS and click to try it free on any app Sponsor deals: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/whatwas. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/whatwas and get on your way to being your best self. Go to cookunity.com/What or enter code What before checkout for 50% off your first week. Go to Seed.com/WHAT and use code 25WHAT to get 25% off your first month. Go to rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app to start saving today! To get 15% off your next gift, go to UNCOMMONGOODS.com/WHATWAS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices