A SERIOUSLY CLOSE CALL…

It happened in a flash, without warning and came within a whisper of leaving Dobbs and I seriously injured and it wasn’t a traffic check.

Monday was a very hectic day and Dobbs was a real trooper. Somehow, I had appointments piled one upon another, back to back and without any breaks all day long. He must have walked nearly five miles before this incident happened and he had handled the entire day with his usual calm collected demeanor, never complaining, never loosing his focus or diligence. He was just enjoying spending the day on the road with me and I have to admit that I was really happy to have him along with me to keep me company in the midst of my hectic schedule.

It was the late afternoon around 5 o’clock and we were coming back from Hollywood where I had just had to return to my pharmacy to have them correct a mistake they had made earlier in the day when filling one of my prescriptions. It was hot, the bus was crowded and people were in an unusually crabby mood. An elderly lady had made everybody grumble because she had insisted that the bus driver extend the wheelchair ramp so that she could get onto the bus with her walker only to ride one block and then hold the whole bus up for 10 minutes while she got off again. She had made Dobbs and I get out of our seat at the front of the bus so she could get by us with her walker and she was rude about it. So needless to say the bus ride wasn’t going all that well to begin with but what happened next is unprecedented and I still can’t believe it happened.

As the elderly lady egresses the bus, a young man who had apparently been out getting drunk in the afternoon at a pub, got onto the bus. According to the bus driver he was so drunk that he couldn’t even get his dollar bill to go into the bus fare-collecting machine. She had waived him to just go and sit down because we would have been there all day waiting for him to pay his fare and the bus was already behind schedule due to traffic. The guy passed by Dobbs and I who was seated normally minding our own business. He nearly tripped and fell over my feet that I was using to protect Dobbs and keep people from stepping on him. He said “sorry,” and blundered on down the aisle deeper into the bus to find a seat. I could smell the alcohol on his breath he was so drunk. I was going to be glad when this bus ride was over.

The bus started up again and traveled for a minute or so when suddenly the driver had to slam the brakes to avoid smashing up a car that had cut the bus off in traffic. Everyone on the bus was thrown forward. Those of us who were seated weren’t too seriously jostled around and I had a good firm grip on Dobbs so he didn’t go flying off anywhere. However, the drunk guy who had just gotten onto the bus had apparently chosen to try to stand up rather than take a seat and he was thrown, through the air, from somewhere in the mid section of the bus all the way to the front of the bus slamming into the fare collection machine head first. As he flew past Dobbs and I, he brushed both of us with his body. Dobbs pressed himself up against me and I pushed myself back into the seat to try to avoid being injured but the truth is that by the time we had reacted to the situation it was already too late to avoid it. Had the man’s flight path been just a few inches more towards us he would have taken both of us out; potentially seriously injuring both Dobbs and myself.

Several people got up out of their seats and went to the man’s aid. He didn’t say anything. Frankly I’m amazed he wasn’t killed. The bus driver pulled over and rather than the man waiting around for help to arrive to check him out, he just fled the bus over the objections of the passengers and the driver.

Honestly, I consider myself lucky not to be in the hospital right now and not to have Dobbs lain up in the animal hospital with serious injuries or broken bones. This episode hasn’t put me off riding the bus. I really don’t have any other way to easily get around LA with my guide dog (given that Access Services can’t seem to figure out that I need a VAN and not a tiny car for transportation. But that’s another story) and so the bus is my only real option regardless of how I feel about it. I guess I should chalk the whole experience up to the idea that, hey, living in LA may be many things, but it’s never boring...

TRAFFIC CHECK...

Well, it’s happened again. Dobbs and I were cut off attempting to cross a major intersection. This time is was the corner of La Cienega and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. We were about two thirds of the way across the street when a car ran through the red light, crossed through the crosswalk in front of us cutting Dobbs and I off nearly hitting us before making a right turn and zooming off. I wish I could see well enough to read the license plate on the cars that do this to us. I’d like to report them. The one possible saving grace this time is that the intersection is equipped with an automatic traffic ticketing camera system and hopefully the person was caught on camera running the red light. Frankly, I’m amazed that the person didn’t have a serious accident. La Cienega and Wilshire is an extremely busy intersection 24 hours a day. I don’t know how many cars travel through there each day but it must be in the tens of thousands.

Dobbs handled the incursion with his usual diligence. He stopped me and backed me up a bit to keep me away from the car. Honestly, I don’t know how I survived traveling around Los Angeles when I was using my cane. Given the number of traffic checks Dobbs and I have had it’s a miracle that I wasn’t hit crossing major intersections before I had him to watch out for the crazies behind the wheel driving in this town.

These events are always stressful on both Dobbs and I. I’ve gotten more accustomed to the idea that these sorts of things are part of traveling when you’re visually impaired but nothing ever really prepares you for them. They're always startling and a shock to the system when they happen. Dobbs always seems really freaked out by these incursions at first and then settles down within a few minutes. I always stop once we’re in a safe place and give him a few dog food kibbles and a lot of love.

For about a week after the event, Dobbs tends to be over protective of me stopping to show me every crack in the sidewalk and obstacle in our path. If there’s a possibility that a car may get within ten yards of us he stops me. What I’ve found is that the best way to get him past this behavior is to be patient with him, encourage him and most of all keep him working. I think he’s handling the stress of these events better and better each time they happen and I'm always so proud of how he takes care of me when we're confronted with these kinds of challenges.

While we were together in Guide Dog School, we had a particularly close call working a route. The stress of that event caused Dobbs to throw up soon after we got back to the dormitory. Gratefully, he hasn’t done that since then. Each time we have a traffic check he seems to be taking it more and more in stride. I don’t blame the poor guy for being stressed out by LA drivers though; I know I am. He has a lot of responsibility watching out for inattentive and discourteous drivers and there are an awful lot of them in this city…