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Published: March 31st 2006
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Scene of Accident
See the hole? I was to the left of that... My trip almost ended today.
I had missed the bus tour (the one included for free with my Tallinn Card) so I headed back to the Old Town again, thinking I'd do the audio tour instead.
I'm walking along and heading back to the tourist info place... I see a souvenier stall across the street. The guy has one of those rotating postcard stands, seeing how I'm leaving tomorrow and haven't written anyone, I cross the street. The older gentleman there tells me 10 Kroons for the big ones, 7 for the small ones. Ok, cool, I'm about to just browse through the cards myself. He doesn't go anywhere, he picks out some cards and starts telling me what's on them.
Postcard 1 - that's the parliment building.
Postcard 2 - this ones shows the old town in the foreground and the modern stuff in the background.
I'm a bit weary at first, like I know how to buy postcards, I don't need some guy telling me about each one...
But he's friendly in his grandfather way, so I try to be polite and I listen to him.
So he's talking and I'm nodding and smiling
(by the way, I'm drinking Estonian Vodka right now... not straight, but with some grape juice)
and so we're looking at the cards, and next thing we know, loud crashing noises come from our rightside.
I can't really describe this well... But basically, part of the roof next to where we are standing collapsed.
So crashing noises... I turn, and I see this older man take hit from a bunch of bricks and fall face forward to the ground, right in front of me. And he's not getting up. He's got a puffy-ish jacket with a hood on, so the hood is covering his head and we don't know if his brains are spilling out from under there. Now the other pedistrians have all stopped dead in their tracks, we're all stunned, and then people all around me start yelling in Estonian and someone there in the street dials for the ambulance meanwhile no one dares move the poor guy on the ground who's now twitching!
Now the postcard man guides me to go under the archway. I'm still holding on to one of his cards. He's now talking with all the others in Estonian and the man on the ground, he's not getting up but he's still twitching. Everyone's alternating between looking at him, at the gaping hole in the roof, at the pile of debrie...
The postcard guy's helper (i think) sees me still holding on to the card and says, 10 Kroons. I guess I'm buying this card. I mean, how can I not, this card and I have been through so much together...
Someone in a uniform (security guard maybe) comes along and tries to talk to the man. We can see the blood coming out from under his hood now... He's not gushing but he's definitely bleeding, and the official looking man tries to help him up and everyone's yelling at him, probably telling him not to move him until the ambulance gets there... Postcard man gives him some papertowels and a cup of water... It must really suck to have bits of brick, dirt and snow in your mouth, all mixed with blood. eeek. But at least he's still got his head relatively in one piece.
Anyway, seems like forever, but finally the police comes. what the hell, the guy needs an ambulance! The police comes out of the car with official police tape and begins to mark off the area.
Finally, the ambulance comes, sirens and all. They help the man and they lift of his hood. And thank goodness his head ain't cracked! He's bleeding from his mouth, his face, his head. His glasses are broken on the ground. He definitely needs that trip to the ER.
So somehow I've managed to get my wallet out and pay for that postcard, and the older postcard man gave me my change (I gave him 25, got a 5 and a 10) and even tells me a bit of history about the back of the 5'er. I can only sort of make out what he's saying, that it's a depiction of Russia? Anyway, now he says in German 'gut nicht mich'. I guess he's not one of the Russians... I don't catch it the first time, but then he repeats himself and I'm like, oh... ja... Gut.
All the while I'm thinking, damn, that could've been me. The man fell less than 3 feet away from me. The collapse was about 5 feet away... Easy math, if the postcard guy hadn't bothered to explain his cards to me, I probably would've finished purchasing and been on my way a few seconds earlier.
Anyway, so the melting snow pretty quickly washed away his blood and the crowd began to disperse after he was loaded onto the ambulance. Some of the people began to take photos of the scene. The postcard man brings out a cup of water and some paper towel so the first guy who was helping the man could wash the blood off his hands.
I'm still kind of in shock, but I can't hide under the archway forever... So I turn around and wave to the postcard man, auf wiedersehen, danke. And he says to me, bitte.
So that was the excitement for the day. I almost just came home after that, I felt so wipped out.
But I kept going... Later on, at one point when I got a chance to put down my backpack, I noticed all these bits of debrie that was caught in the creases.
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Wendy
non-member comment
EEP!
Hm, this post isn't going to help with Mother not worrying about you...