Parents' Corner
A Neighborhood Incident
Robin Hurd
This parent’s corner article is going to be different than most. But this summer at the Hurd household has been different than most, too.
We live in a quiet suburban neighborhood full of white houses with black shutters that was built during a time when moms stayed home and raised their children and dads went to work in offices in the city. Over the years, the neighborhood has become one that has attracted families with several kids because of the quiet streets, large yards and good schools.
In addition to these reasons, we moved into a ranch house in this neighborhood because it had a nice large bathroom to adapt for wheelchairs, good sized rooms and did not have a galley kitchen “I’m NOT going to cook dinner with 2 wheelchairs driving through my cooking area every evening!” I coped with the staid white houses with black shutters by painting our house tan with a mulberry purple door.
The whole neighborhood has been very supportive of our children—those in wheelchairs and those without. Parents warn their teenage drivers to look out for the kids in the wheelchairs “You know the house…. the one with that purple door!”
Our corner of the neighborhood is a boys’ paradise. On any given evening, 6-10 boys can be found playing football in the front yards, biking around the block or playing soccer or basketball at each other’s homes.
Every evening, neighbors walk their dogs or bike around with their families, stopping to greet each other as they pass.
I tell you all of this to set the stage for what happened here this summer.
Ever since we have lived here, we have had a single man as a next door neighbor. He is generally a quiet man who keeps to himself. This spring, we noticed that his mental illness seemed to be worsening. His behaviors became more frenzied; he spent many an evening driving out into town, then back into the neighborhood, then off into town again in excess of the speed limit. He paced the neighborhood like a caged lion, desperately looking for anyone who was out in the yard to talk with. Occasionally, he ended up in people’s garages as they parked their cars.
Several of the neighbors contacted his father, then the mental illness crisis hotline and the state police as he seemed to be becoming more and more desperate for interactions and more and more bold in his attempts to find them. We were afraid that he was going to have an emotional crash soon.
Then one evening as I fixed supper, I commented that I had not seen our neighbor out of his house for a couple of days. That concerned us, but we had kids to feed and decided to call his father (again) later that evening.
Shortly after David put the twins to bed, he stepped outside to enjoy the evening and visit with neighbors as they walked their dogs. He came back inside in a rush. “Where are the big kids?”
They went out on their bikes. Why?”
“Our neighbor just drove out of his garage and into the neighborhood way too fast!” He yelled as he darted back out the door. A second later, I heard the crash, then the tinkle of glass as a lightpole hit the ground. Our neighbor had run 3 stop signs and driven into it head on at high speed. He was trying to commit suicide.
In an instant, 20 people rushed to the scene. Some helped him to get out of his car—amazingly he was unhurt. Others sat with him at the edge of the road to await the emergency crews.
As the emergency sirens began to get close, I remembered that my son Caleb was surely still awake and would panic as they arrived right outside our house. Still wondering in the back of my mind where my older kids were, I darted into the twins room. Caleb was sitting up in bed trembling, watching his brother for signs of seizures and wondering who was going to be taken by ambulance. I was trembling too. It seemed so wrong that those of us who had seen this crash coming and had called all the “right people” had not been able to avert this near tragedy. “How am I going to explain this to my kids?” I wondered as we sat on their beds and snuggled.
Siren after siren sounded, and Caleb got more and more concerned. I explained that our neighbor had banged into a light pole and that the street light fell into the road. “Lots of people need to come to check and make sure that the problem gets fixed.” I said. “Why couldn’t the problem get fixed some other way?” I thought. “Ambulances are here to make sure no one got hurt”, I said. “Where are my older kids?” I thought. “Fire trucks are here to make sure the electricity doesn’t start a fire. Policemen are here to make sure everything’s OK.” I said. “Everything is NOT OK!” I thought. “Why couldn’t we get anyone to believe us before now?” The twins were calm enough to allow me to leave the room for a minute. I checked and found that our neighbor was being put into the ambulance on a stretcher. Once that was done, I asked the boys if they would like to look out at the “fire trucks”. They said yes.
They ended up in their wheelchairs in their PJs, out in the driveway, looking at the scene. The light pole was still in the street, the car sat with it’s front end smashed in, a fire truck and the police car were still there, plus a truck from the electric company and a tow truck. About this time, my older kids rode up on their bikes. They had been at the neighbors, roasting marshmallows in the backyard, safe and oblivious to everything.
“What happened?” they asked.
“How do I explain this”, I thought. “ He drove his car into the light pole.” I said.
“On purpose?”
“Yes”
“Why?”
“Oh, help.” I thought. “How do I handle this with a 13 year old with anxiety?” I said, “I don’t know why he thought it was a good idea to do it. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”This whole event has struck me hard. It’s difficult to understand why after numerous calls to those who could have intervened, the situation had to get this desperate. As a parent of children who have anxiety disorder, I hope that I can help my sons to deal with their mental health issues before they get out of control. I hope that I am communicating that counseling, medication, talking about feelings and some coping tricks are good things that may be a part of daily life for them. While I hope that my children can live independently, I also hope that I will be involved enough in their lives to know when things are not going well.
Because of this incident, our neighbor is finally getting the help and supports he so desperately needed.
One good thing came out of this experience for my kids, also. In some strange way, it has helped Caleb with his anxiety over medical things. The bent up car and the light pole in the street looked like a problem that was too big for mom and dad to deal with. It made sense to him that we needed help to make sure everything was OK. He understood why the emergency vehicles came. And since he, probably more than anyone else, wanted “his” neighborhood back to normal, he welcomed the emergency vehicles as the only way to get things back to normal right outside his house. Since the accident, Caleb has had much less fear of emergency vehicles.
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