I got home after spending a week in a small village outside of Oxford England. It had been a very long travel day. My colleague and I caught a ride with two others who had rented a car. It's a little over an hour from Oxford to Heathrow airport in London. We left early, we had an hour in the car, two plus hours at the airport, we waited in the take off line for 40 minutes. We waited at baggage, it's 40 minutes to Lund from the airport in Copenhagen. The trip to Lund was about 7.5 hours. Once in Lund it should have been another 20 minutes home.
When we got out of the train station and were headed to the main corner we saw lots and lots of steam. There had been a water leak in the district heating. The streets were flooded with water 190 degree water. The police were out taping streets off and closing roads.
It was odd. Steam has a specific smell and the air was full of it. Not to mention wherever you looked it was super steamy. When I realized that the road was closed I started walking to where the cabs always sit. Soon I saw that area was flooded as well, and all the cabs were gone. I was going to need to clear the downtown area. I thought maybe I could catch the bus a few stops down.
I was on a mission and I hightailed it through town. I looked up and took this picture.
When I did, there was a loud crash. I pulled my iPad down to see a bus coming through the closed street with caution tape flapping around the front like when a runner crosses the finish line. There was a pole sticking out of the windshield and the windshield was shattered. He was still driving kind of fast I thought, and finally pulled to a stop just across the street from where I took the above picture. Then I saw this.
As I started to put the pieces together, I realized the bus had just ran over some people. You can see in the picture that the awning for Harry's restaurant is crashed in. There is a lady getting medical attention in the middle of the road and a few across the street on the sidewalk. The bus is just to the left out of this picture. I can't figure out what he was doing. As you can see on the right of this picture there is a police car clearly blocking the street. Maybe he was driving to fast, the steam obstructed his view, he saw the police car too late, and swerved to miss it. But how do you drive up on a sidewalk in a downtown area? The sad news is that one of the people died in the accident. The good news for me, is that I was on the lucky side of the street. You just never know. I wasn't so irritated about how long it took me to get home after I realized, it could have been a lot worse.
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