Decisions and Ripple Effects

          How many of our decisions affect others?  Choosing to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich over tuna fish may not have any kind of a ripple effect as making a choice to drive or walk toward oncoming traffic. 

          Yesterday morning Balras Sing Dhillon had stopped his car just outside of Myrtle Creek.  Whether it was a conscience decision or not is unknown. 

Police received a call about a vehicle stopped in the northbound left lane of the interstate approximately six in the morning and went to investigate. When they approached the vehicle, the driver took off. 

The driver continued for another mile before crashing into the medium.  He must have climbed over the medium after he abandoned his car.  Was he running from the police?  Was he so disoriented that he didn’t know what he was doing?  I believe the latter as it is said he ran onto the freeway and was struck by multiple cars that were going southbound.  Just before he died several people were affected by the decisions he had made.

Drivers between Exits 119 and 113 had nowhere to go.  They were stuck in traffic – lives were changed.  I do not know how many jobs were affected.  I know there were schools that were missing a number of instructors for one to three hours (depending on what time each school started).

The decision made created lost time – not only for the teachers but their students as well.  In one school the students of the absent instructors were required to go to the gym.  There they were given the choice to participate in physical activity or watch from the bleachers.  It was suggested they do homework or study – which many were obviously not doing as they surfed on cell phones or visited.

It was a weird day for everyone.  Instructors.  Students.  Aides.  Other community members who had been called to assist until the instructors arrived.

Often the decisions we make – whether consciously or not – affect others. The driver was a 35-year-old man from Lincoln, California.  We don’t know what brought him to Oregon.  That is what the media said.  The fatal accident is still under investigation as so much is unknown.

I am reminded of another incident also involving a car.  The driver had not taken his medication and was not supposed to be driving.  He wasn’t in his right mind when he made his decisions.  He drove onto the sidewalk and hit some students who were walking along 4000 West as they were returning home from Kearns Junior High.  Some media indicated there were seven students.  Other said five. 

I don’t recall the year it happened.  But I remember seeing the emergency lights spinning in the dark.  The road had been closed for more than 24 hours.  All the students involved had been taken to the hospital.  None of them were kept overnight as I recall. I don’t know what emotional scars were created or how long they lasted.

The one thing about Utah is there are alternatives.  There are back roads and exits that will still allow one to go in all four directions.  Here, in Oregon, there are not a lot of back roads or options.  We may think our decisions might not matter – but they do.