|
 | |  | |
Harold Taylor, who joined the police force in the late 1940's in his early 20's, tells us of one of the morbid sides of being a policeman.
I was involved in a more tragic incident with Charlie T one Sunday morning. I had gone to interview a petty thief with Charlie whilst I was on CID Aid. It was a bit of a tragic case as the fellow was a real 'never do well' and his wife was in an advanced state of disseminated schlorosis.
After the interview we were driving home behind a double decker. Charlie was driving. Suddenly from behind a tree I saw a man step into the road as the bus approached.
I said to Charlie 'You'll have to pull out and stop, there's a fellow just stepped out in front of the bus and he'll be pulling out.'
The bus did pull out, but not in time to miss the pedestrian, because I could see the fellow's legs as he lay on the ground and the bus was pulling out at an angle, I could see it was skidding with its brakes on.
As the rear wheels of the bus reached the body, which was half under the bus, the wheels mounted the body and scuffed it along the road with its full weight on the body. The bus came to a halt, and as it did so it rolled backward of the body.
I quickly got out of the car and crawled under the bus to the man's side. The man's body was ripped open and I could see all his intestines exposed. I think he was momentarily alive when I spoke to him but his eyes went blank as I spoke.
When I crawled out from under the bus several passengers had alighted, I found that they were policemen and women from a neighbouring division, all were witnesses to the occurrence.
In the meantime Charlie had reported the incident over the radio to control and was on his way to the end of the road where the Police Surgeon lived and returned with him and he pronounced the man dead.
Oddly enough when Charlie had reported the incident they asked for a description of the man because only a few minutes before, a bus driver in the centre of the town had reported that a person had tried to throw himself under a bus. This person was never traced.
From talking to people who were about, and there were plenty gossiping on their doorstep this Sunday morning, apparently the man had been observed hanging about for some time.
No one had taken any notice, however, as he was known to be a bus conductor, and they presumed he was just waiting for the bus to take him to work.
Some did say that as the bus approached he hid behind the tree and jumped out as it came level with him. All agreed that the driver had no time to avoid the collision as the man threw himself in front of the bus at the last minute.
From where I sat it looked as though he took one exaggerated step into the road that took him in line with the nearside wheels. The bus driver was thankful to have so many police witnesses to exonerate him from responsibility.
Harold Taylor, West Sussex, 2001
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
