An email sent from Lydia:

This morning, Sunday, September 19 at around 10:02 am, I'd just woken up and was doing dishes in my 6th floor apartment kitchen that faces the intersection of 143rd & Aurora, when I heard, in sequence: a siren, a car accelerating, and then the sound of someone applying their brakes, hard. I instinctually glanced up just in time to see a large silver "Yukon" type pickup truck clip the back side of a mid-sized brown sedan, which then spun around in such a manner that the pickup then rammed directly into the driver's side of the brown car. Both cars then spun around further, with the brown car ending up against a pole, completely smashed in on the left side. All of this took place in a second. I was reaching for my cell phone when a police car arrived and a cop jumped out with a gun pointed before him, and I realized that the cop must have been pursuing the brown car.

The policeman scuttled, crab like, over to the the driver's side of the utterly damaged brown car and yelled "Put your hands up," and then he looked carefully into the car. I thought "The driver of that car very likely cannot move, let alone put his hands up." Next the cop backed away and moved toward the pickup while also yelling back over his shoulder to the brown car and gesturing with a downward, suppressive hand movement, "Stay there, don't move." The cop then opened the pickup's door and appeared to talk to the car's two occupants, apparently determining them to be mostly okay, as he then moved back to the brown car and looked in again. It appeared that the cop was talking to the brown car's driver, but I saw no sign that he was getting a response. He then put his gun back in its holster. Soon, more police cars arrive. A new cop approached the brown car and inspected it from all sides and leaned in to both the driver's and passenger's side, and appeared to be attempting to talk to the driver. Within 12 minutes of the accident six police cars and one fire truck have arrived, and it started to rain. Another two fire trucks arrived, and a large number of firemen swarmed the brown car, moving around in a mass and climbing all over the car. One brought a circular saw device and sawed the entire top off the car. As this is happening the skies opened and it really began to rain very hard. A few firemen donned yellow raincoats.

At this point I'm wondering why no ambulances have arrived, but a few minutes later one does arrive. Paramedics get out, but move slowly, and I realize, hey, that guy is dead. With a great deal of effort, firemen wrap him in plastic inside the car and extract him on to a plastic plank. His face is exposed, and for a minute I think maybe he is still alive, but when they put him in the ambulance, it stays put. Paramedics, police and firemen mill around. The pickup truck is mostly left alone. Occasionally someone goes over to talk to the occupants.

Over half an hour after the accident, another aid car arrives, and the people in the pickup finally receive medical attention. A new ambulance arrives, and gurneys are unloaded, the two people are removed from the pickup, and placed into one ambulance, which also seems to be taking it's time. I think, maybe they are not that badly hurt. Forty-five minutes after the impact the ambulance containing the living victims finally drives away. As if scripted, the clouds part and the sun comes out.

And so, this morning I learned how to tell the living from the dead in a traffic accident: the living get a gurney with a mattress, the dead get the plastic plank.

Update:

Yes, and it turns out I was wrong, the guy lived! He stole a Subaru, high speed chase, etc., and that car was practically U shaped, but he's alive. One dumb but lucky guy.