Several weeks ago Tom, myself, and 8 other people from our organization were out eating dinner at a restaurant. It was a dark and misty evening and as we were finishing with our meal we heard the sound of tires squealing, a large thud and saw a truck driving away. I immediately thought that the truck that drove away hit one of the parked cars on the street. Then some of our team members realized that there was a man laying in the street, all of us then realizing that it indeed was a hit and run. We all sat stoic for a few moments, at this one of the other person’s from our organization (Tedde) asked if we should go over there, to which I replied yes. So, we proceeded towards the body, at the time we were thinking he was dead, however he soon started moving his limbs. Tedde started talking to him while I was directing traffic. She was encouraging the man not to move, however one of the other bystanders insisted that he be moved from the street, at which time he picked him up, not graciously, almost dropped him and proceeded to bring him to the sidewalk. As many of you are probably familiar that you are NOT supposed to move a person/body after a serious injury, obviously that is not the case here in this country. During this time Tom and one of the other members of our group had run down the street looking for the police station. After asking several people and getting responses of just down the street they arrived at the police station almost a mile away. Upon entering they found that the call had been received and the police were ¨on their way¨. When they began walking back they saw the police truck driving down the road towards the accident. When the police arrived their first and only question to people around was "Is he drunk?". The man who carried him before again carried him to the police vehicle (a short-bed pickup truck), he was put in the back along with the man who carried him to the truck, and proceeded to what we all assumed would be the hospital. We were all (the northamericans) amazed at the lack of professionalism, with no questions asked in regards to the other vehicle, etc. It really felt like it was clean it up, get em out and maybe we will ask questions later. Unfortunately, the Salvadorans had stated that this is a normal occurrence here in this country.
Thirty minutes later as we were heading back to the office in our company vehicle, Tedde (who was driving) suddenly slammed on the brakes. We then saw the same man who had been hit and taken away by the police was walking up the hill towards where he was hit. Obviously, he had not been taking to the hospital and was just dropped off away from the scene of the crime. We were completely in shock (again) of how this situation was handled, yet sadly enough the Salvadorans with us told us that events such as these can happen quite often.
