Kapiolani Community College
Diamond Journal 2004

It’s Hard Forgetting Busch Gardens
Aaron Brown

It was a sizzling hot Florida morning. Excited and anticipating our day at Busch Gardens, my parents, my sister and I crammed into our little beige Toyota. Before heading out, we said a quick prayer, something like, “Keep us safe today, Amen.” We almost always prayed when heading out for a family day. The atmosphere was fun and filled with laughter. It was one of those rare occasions where my whole family was together and no one was complaining. Everyone was talking and yelling over each other and conversations were mixed, from boasting about what roller coaster they were going to ride, to making fun of our past theme park experiences. Going to theme parks had always been the best of family trips and this trip seemed to be no different.

Our day started with a quick breakfast at Micky D’s before making the trek to Busch Gardens, which was a long two hours away. After breakfast, my dad made sure everyone used the restroom. “We’re not stopping again, so you better go,” he’d always say. Getting on the interstate, we could see it was going to take a little longer than two hours; it seemed that everyone in Florida had decided to go out for a drive. Traffic was thick and my dad was a little tense and impatient, his usual demeanor when driving. But we were eagerly on our way, traveling 65 mph along with a horizon full of other cars.

As passengers, we did our job and kept busy conversing and playing dumb car games. The majority of the conversations were about the past few trips to Busch Gardens and other theme parks and how we were going to ride a new ride or how we weren’t scared to ride something anymore. My older sister was having a blast teasing me about crying on the up-side-down boat ride last time and I, trying to keep some dignity, kept trying to convince her I wasn’t crying from the ride, but because I had a headache (not likely). Bored from 45 minutes of constant rambling, we decided to play some silly road trip games. First we played some license plate game, and, getting bored of that pretty fast, we started up a game of I Spy. Playing these games wasn’t as fun as having my Gameboy, which I had left at home, but was sure better than hearing the humiliating story about me crying last time.

I particularly enjoyed playing I Spy, frustrating my sister by lying and not telling her if she had guessed what I was spying. Gazing down the highway, about forty-five minutes into our drive, and keeping an eye out for any obscure objects to stump my sister in I Spy, it happened . . . “DAD! DAD!” A truck was skidding sideways about three cars up and had started flipping. I could hear the nightmarish sounds of metal crushing and scraping, along with a rhythmic sound of glass exploding with each thud of the heavy truck against the inflexible pavement. My dad stomped on the breaks and shot out a hand across my mom, I guess hoping to restrain her better than her seatbelt could. Wide-eyed and feeling the tight grip of the seatbelt across my chest, I watched as the truck flipped over and over. Then, in what was like something out of a movie, a rag-doll like figure was flung out of the truck and went skidding violently across the highway. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we shot back into our seats, the seatbelts finally releasing their iron-grip. As the scene slowly came into focus, screeching breaks could still be heard as a whole interstate came to a sudden halt. A pungent smell of burning rubber filled the air as a cloud of white smoke filled the interstate. I could hear screaming. Someone else was yelling. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Get help!” Ahead, the truck was lying upside-down and was almost completely off the side of the road. The truck was crushed on every side and missing all its windows. “Call 9-1-1,” my dad said shakily as he got out and started walking toward the growing congregation on the side of the road.

“ Mom, the guy, he’s over here,” I said.

“WHAT, What guy?”

“Over there.”

“Oh, my God. Just stay here.”

The rag-doll we had seen thrown out of the truck was walking toward us. Covered in blood, missing his shirt, his jeans totally ripped up on one side, yelling, “Help! Help!” My mom, who’s a registered nurse, ran up to the bleeding man and tried to get him to sit and calm down. As the guy turned his back toward us, my stomach dropped. The skin on his back was scraped off and there was blood down the back of his body.

A group of about five people came running to assist my mom and they all immediately tried to stop the man from coming any closer to his demolished truck. Finally, the sounds of sirens could be heart and after a minute or so, a whole brigade of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks were on the scene. The congregation on the road was quickly broken up and everyone was herded back to their cars. My parents both returned and before getting in had a short talk, I guessed about what each had seen. Slowly they got in the car. Shoulders slumped and eyes downcast, my parents were rather quiet and seemed shaken up. Scared to say anything myself, I asked my sister to ask them what happened. Overhearing my question, my dad quickly said something like, “I’ll tell you what happened as soon as we head out of here; for now let’s not talk about it. I don’t think we’re going to Busch Gardens today, but me and your mom talked about going out for dinner if you want.” For the first time in my life, my sister and I really didn’t care about Busch Gardens; we didn’t even want to go out for dinner. We all decided just to head home.

We only had to wait about 15 minutes until a little clearing was made for the bulging river of cars to pass through. Still keeping an eye on the accident and peering through the back window as we drove past the scene, I noticed a white sheet had been draped over the driver’s side of the flipped truck. Before I could ask why they had done that, my dad sharply said, “Put your seatbelt on!” Since I couldn’t see anything anymore, I really wanted to ask what had happened and why everyone was surrounding the truck. Seeing the anxiousness on our faces, my dad said, “I don’t know what you saw back there, but I hope you never have to see something like that again.” Getting straight to the point, I asked about who was in the truck. Looking at my mom and then pausing, my dad started, “The truck apparently got a flat tire and lost control. The guy you saw wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and went through the back window.”

My mom interrupted and said, “Talking with him, he seemed to be all right but only remembered flipping once and then waking up back there on the side of the road where you saw him walking.” My dad continued, “And there was a guy in the truck. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt either and . . .” he took a deep gulp of air, “it looks like he may have been decapitated.” I realized my dad was still upset. We were shocked. It never occurred to us that someone had died. Looking blankly at the back of the seats in front of us, we both realized we had just seen someone die. Trying to be comforting, my mom spoke up and started talking about the friend and that he was going to be fine and that I did a good job of noticing the guy on the side of the road. This didn’t really do much to stop the shock that had hit us when we learned we had just witnessed someone die and another lose a friend.

The rest of the drive was quiet and we all kept to ourselves. All the way home, I wanted to cry, but didn’t. All I could think about was how someone’s friend, brother, and son had died. I wondered what their names were and where they were headed. Dwelling on their families and recapturing the look on the bloody guy’s face, I got more and more upset inside. Breaking the hour long silence, my mom asked if we would all pray for the two men’s families and them; Mom said the prayer. This lifted all our spirits a little and eased some of the tension in the car for the rest of the ride home.