The Mercedes was black.
Deer aren’t silver.
Then I found part of an orange reflector behind the radiator.
Along with a bent piece of metal post.
Then I opened the rear door.
And found Noah’s booster seat.
Blue and gray.
Cartoon shark on the back.
I had bought it myself.
The plastic shell was cracked along one side.
I sat on the floor holding it.
Then I reached underneath.
My fingers touched something hard.
A little green plastic T. rex.
One arm chewed off.
Chompy.
Noah’s favorite dinosaur.
He had carried that thing everywhere since he was two.
He couldn’t sleep without it.
I sat on the shop floor holding my son’s broken car seat and his toy dinosaur.
Marcus found me.
“Boss? You okay?”
I held up Chompy.
Then said the words I had been afraid to say.
“The boys were in the car.”
The following morning, I borrowed diagnostic equipment from an old friend who worked in accident reconstruction.
The Mercedes had an event data recorder.Earn a CS Degree
A black box.
It stored information from the seconds before a serious collision.
Speed.
Braking.
Seatbelts.
Occupancy.
I connected the equipment.
The crash happened Saturday, September 7.
1:42 in the morning.
The Mercedes had been traveling fifty-eight miles per hour.
The road’s speed limit was thirty-five.
The brakes were applied half a second before impact.Service Your Car
The driver’s seatbelt was buckled.
So was the front passenger’s.
And two rear seatbelts were buckled.
Both back seats occupied.
I stared at the screen.
That had been Laura’s weekend with the boys.
At 1:42 in the morning, my children had been sitting in the back of a Mercedes traveling fifty-eight in a thirty-five.
The car had hit something silver.Compare Cars
And something with an orange reflector.
