I was driving to pick up my son at school to take him to a doctor's appointment. This was a regular appointment--his ten year old check up. I was on NE 50th Street and had just crossed over I-5 when I saw a late model Jeep turn on to 50th a few dozen yards ahead of me. (If the US were metric or I were Canadian, I would have said about 30 meters in front of me.) Smoke was coming out the tail pipe in a not so pleasant way.
"That car needs its emissions checked," I thought.
As I got closer, I smelled something burning. "She needs her oil changed," I thought. (Not that I have any idea how cars work. Just a guess here.)
The driver stopped at the traffic light at Latona. I hung back, not wanting to get too close to this poorly behaving vehicle when I noticed small flames coming out from under her wheel well. I hung back for about four seconds, thinking I didn't want my car to catch fire. I also assumed the driver would be getting out, and I wanted to give her room. After five seconds, I realized the driver didn't know the car was on fire.
I pulled up next to her, rolled down my window and said, "Pardon me. Your car is on fire." My voice was about excited as the computerize woman who says, "We're sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again." Maybe I was even more calm than that. I was like Siri and the woman on my GPS combined. The operator is a little snitty when she says, "Please make a note of it," as if she has been sitting there all day live responding to wrong numbers.
"I need to move my car out of the intersection and it won't move," the driver replied while fiddling with her phone. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties, with curly brown hair.
"Your car is on fire. You need to get out of your car," I replied in my automated operator/Siri/GPS voice.
"But my baby is in the car."
"You need to get you and your baby out of the car. I will pull around the corner and call 911. You get out of the car." There is an espresso shop on the corner. In three tenths of a mile, left turn. Please try again.
I pulled on to Latona and got out my phone. While my voice was even, my hands were not. I could not type in my passcode to unlock the phone. I tried twice and then I hit the emergency call button.
I told the 911 dispatcher there was a car fire. I read a nearby street sign to make sure I did not have a bout of verbal dyslexia and give her the wrong location.
"Are there flames coming out of the car?" the dispatcher asked, in the same tone of voice as "Do you want fries with that?" I imagine 911 dispatchers are trained to be remote car mechanics and figure which ones are real problems and which cars are overheating.
"There were flames. I don't see them now. I see red coals, though, underneath the car." I know it wasn't really coals, but something metal was hot enough to turn red. "Oh wait, now I see flames again coming out the bottom."
"Is there anyone in the car?" she replied as if she were asking "Can I super-size that?" I am not bashing this poor woman. She probably deals with hysterical people all day calling about nonsense. And then once in a blue moon the real call comes where there is a bona fide emergency.
"Yes, there is a woman and her baby in the car."
"A BABY??!!!" This was said in the tone of voice of "There is a baby in a burning car???!! What could be worse than a baby in a burning car?" Not much. Two babies in a burning car? "Is the baby still in the car?"
I was around the corner, so I got out of my car to check. "Nope, not yet."
Silence from the 911 operator. This was not good if the 911 woman was scared. If Vegas had odds on who would be cooler in a crisis, a 911 operator or me, they'd be like 100 to 1 with the safe bet on the operator. I tried to help the operator so I kept talking, giving a running commentary as if I were doing play by play for a football game on the radio where people can't see what is happening on the field. "The mom is at the door, she is getting the baby out...and the baby is out of the car."
The dispatcher let go of her breath. I think her heart began to beat again after pausing for a few moments.
After the call, I walked over to the mom, who was standing about seven feet from the car, or two meters for the Canadians. I didn't think it was a good idea to stand so close to the car.
"Let's step back," I said, looking at the baby. The baby was wearing one of those hospital newborn t-shirts with the super wide neck hole. The baby's face was lumpy and his head bobbled as if the night before he learned how to hold it up.
We all stepped back about twenty feet. As we did, the hood of the car was engulfed in flames just like a marshmallow in a campfire. Whooomp. Then the fire went down.
"Diaper brain," a friend called it, the sense of life blurring by in those first weeks of motherhood. This is was the mixed up time for this mom when her brain is being re-wired to take care of baby, when down is up and up is down. Of course she couldn't leave the car. Her child was in it. She couldn't take her baby outside on the street. That would be dangerous. But she couldn't see the flames. And I did.
"Do you need to use my phone?" I asked.
"No, my friend is coming," she replied. "My cell phone had lost its signal, but I reached her."
"Very good," I said. "Are you sure you don't need anything?" The baby stared at me with his big brown eyes.
She told me she was fine, as she watched her car smolder. This was all in the voice of a mother of a newborn who can't believe she is standing on a corner watching her car burn.
I drove off to school get my son for his check-up. The fire truck raced by as I pulled away. Unlike the other crashes, this one thankfully had no journalists, no television cameras, no tragic ending to make the town weep. No story for the Seattle Times--just a story for me, a mom and a baby.
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