On the rural roads around my home it is an unhappy fact that I often
see dead animals on the road, sometimes quite large ones, in various
stages of dismemberment. So as I was driving to work this morning I was
not especially surprised to see the first sad signs of a life ended in
the left hand lane of the motorway as it passes under the bridge at
Gretna. It was early morning and still dark and I was listening to my
Open University course on the car stereo as, horrifyingly, my
headlights caught larger and larger body parts and an enormous amount
of blood spread across the carriageway. I muttered to myself “blimey, that
was a big one.”
And then I
saw clothing. I felt pins and needles run from the top of my head down
my body. I also thought I saw the body of a child lying face down in the
hard shoulder but, in the dark and the brief, unreal moment, I could not
be certain. I hope I am wrong; we see the shapes of human beings
everywhere.
I reported it to the police who, to my relief,
confirmed they were not aware of any incident, but would investigate.
Then I waited nervously. The first indication that what I had seen was real was the large number of blue flashing lights heading in that direction, then reports that the motorway was closed following a “serious incident”.
Then, with a news report of a male suicide, came certainty. Jumping from a
motorway bridge into the path of traffic is a hard, cold and lonely death. I feel
very, very sorry for everyone connected with this and have enormous
admiration for the police who must look squarely at every aspect of an
incident I only glimpsed.
