Ummmm.....Sorry??

Driving home from swim team with all the kids in the car, Anne starts yelling:

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"There's a dead guy in the road back there. A dead guy! Mom, Mom! We have to call someone. There's a dead guy. A dead guy!"

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At first we thought she was trying to prank us. She insisted she did see a guy lying in the road. So I flipped a U and headed back. Sure enough, there was a guy lying in the road who looked to be dead.

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He was passed out in a gutter with his bicycle halfway across his body. He looked like he'd biffed it while riding his bike and maybe knocked himself out. Another man in a red car had arrived just seconds before us. We both pulled over to park. While I instructed Rose to keep the air conditioner on and the doors locked, the red car man started to assess the guy. The guy was non-responsive. The red car man shouted for me to call 911. I grabbed my cell and hastily put in the call. The red car man kept trying to talk to the guy, using both English and Spanish. Spanish seemed to do the trick. The guy finally opened his eyes. The red car man told the guy, in Spanish, to lie still, we had called 911, and help was on the way.

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The guy freaked!

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He tried to sit up, but could only get his head off the ground. He tried to tell the red car man and I, in Spanish, that he was alright and to not call 911. Ummm....Sorry, but I already called. Meanwhile another car stopped to help. The lady passenger called through her window telling the red car man, in Spanish, that she had called 911.

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The guy freaked more!

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He dragged his body into a sitting position, staggered to his feet, picked up his bike, and started hobbling away. The red car man and I stared after him. As we heard the sirens drawing close, it occurred to the red car man that this guy might be an illegal immigrant. The red car man started feeling really bad, thinking he might be responsible for this guy getting deported. I started feeling bad too. We were just trying to help the guy, trying to make sure he wasn't dead or hurt. We weren't trying to turn him into to Border Patrol.

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Just then the emergency crew arrived: first a police car, followed by a fire truck and two ambulances. Yowser! The man had gotten pretty far down the road, but the policeman** tracked him down. I saw the policeman start talking to the guy, checking him out. A couple minutes later the EMT's arrived and took over the guy's assessment. The policeman then turned to red car man and I to get our stories.

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We told him what we saw. The red car man then voiced his concern that the man might deny help because he didn't have his papers on him and was afraid of being arrested and deported. The policeman chuckled. He informed us that immigration status wasn't the problem. The problem was the guy's alcohol intake. The guy had been passed out DRUNK!

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Ummmm.... Sorry guy. You were lying in the road, completely unresponsive. We thought you were seriously injured or dead-dead. We didn't realize you were dead drunk.

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Hope you feel better soon. Although I'm sure the blaring sirens are doing nothing to help with that...

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**Funny thing, I had just seen the responding policeman that morning at the county sheriff's office. He was dropping of some papers while I was getting my fingerprints for my clearance renewal card. He remembered seeing me too. Haha! I love living in a small town. :)