The last anyone saw of Derek Shepherd , he was smiling.
He dropped by the Johnson's house early on the morning of his death, and the air was still comfortable and cool. Three young boys followed him out of the car and up onto the front porch, already laughing to themselves. As Derek knocked on the door, he smile at his son .
"Jake, Mr. Shepherd is here to take you camping," Mrs. Johnson said as she opened the door, and a fourth nine-year-old rushed forward to join his friends. Mrs. Johnson smiled up at Derek. "Thanks for getting him out of the house. He's been looking forward to this for weeks."
"No problem at all," Derek said, and that was when he smiled. His son, Tanner, was pulling on his sleeve, and the other boys were already walking to the car. It was clear that he had a weekend of chaos ahead of him, and he chuckled a bit to himself as he said: "I suppose I'd better get going."
Mrs. Johnson waved goodbye, and Derek followed his son back to his white mercedes benz's jeep.
An hour later that same car was swerving off the road.
The right wheel clipped the edge of the road, and the back of the car rose bounced wildly. The car didn't slow down as it over-corrected, careening onto the wrong side of the road.
It was a mostly empty road, on the way to a local campsite. There was no one there to see if Derek was still smiling.
The car charged forward, undeterred by laws of traffic or the lines of the road.
Maybe if the road hadn't curved at the exact point that it did, or if Derek had paused to speak with for just a moment longer, things wouldn't have lined up so exactly. Maybe the car would have had a moment longer to notice the danger in front of them, and their last minute swerve would have gotten them completely out of Derek way. Maybe it would have been a close call, but not a crash, and it would have been forgotten as soon as it was over.
Instead, the air filled with the horrible sound of metal scratching against metal.
The impact was enough to sin Derek out of control, and the vehicle spun. Horizontally, at first, like a top that had chosen just the wrong place to put on a show. Then, as they hit the uneven edge of the road, the spin turned vertical and the car flipped itself over half a dozen times.
The car came to an abrupt halt as it slammed into an old oak tree, the force of impact mangling the metal of the side of the car.
Derek wasn't alive to hear it, but in the moment after the crash, there was a sickening silence. The road was empty, the other car having fallen off the side in another direction, and there wasn't anyone to cry out that something horrible had happened. For a moment, the world had no idea what had happened, and everything was silent.
Three and a half minutes after the crash, a pickup truck rolled by the scene. The teenage girl in the front seat was laughing, and she turned her head to the side to catch her breath for a moment.
Instead, she felt the breath knocked out of her all over again.
She screamed at her boyfriend to stop, hitting his arm with an open palm until he got the message. She yanked open the door and was out of the car before it even stopped rolling, her eyes wide with horror. As her boyfriend parked the car in the middle of the road, she ran to the scene of the crash, her breath shaking as she saw the damage.
"Travis, call 911." she said, her voice cracking as the first of her tears fell. Her boyfriend didn't move not close enough to hear her horrified mumbling.
She pulled out her own phone, her feet frozen to the ground as she dialed. She could already see the blood, and the shadow of a man in the front seat. He wasn't moving, not even twitching, and already her mind was on the worst.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"There's a..." her voice cracked and a sob shook her resolve. She took a deep breath and tried to continue. "There's been a crash."
They ran through the usual questions of location, and she managed to keep herself from hyperventilating. She couldn't stop staring at the shadow in the driver's seat. It still hadn't moved.
"Are there any fatalities?"
She felt a lump in her throat and she tried to gather herself together enough to answer. She tried to force out the words, to report on the scene in front of her, but the only thing she managed to squeeze out were a few more tears. Her boyfriend, appearing behind her, took the phone and answered the question.
"It looks like there's at least one fatality. It's hard to tell if there was anyone else in the car."
The woman walked forward. She knew they would need to know the situation to know how much help to send, how many ambulances to bring. She could barely breathe, but she forced herself to take one step after another, until the car was within reach. The car had been flipped over, and she put her hand on the underside of the vehicle, leaning down to peer inside.
She would never forget the site before her. Five bodies hung from their seats, slipping from their seat-belts as gravity pulled them downwards. She couldn't make out faces or injuries or numbers. All she could see swimming before her eyes were bodies... bodies that were far too small and far too mangled.
as she pull the bodys out of the car she was just hoping the would breather of move
She didn't even know this family, but she was crying more than she ever had in her life. She reached forward, numb from shock, and fumbled with the latch on the seat belt . She carefully lifted the body of an little boy from the car, holding it to her chest as if it were only asleep. No matter how closely she listened, she couldn't find a heartbeat.
When help arrived, nearly ten minutes later, she was still sitting there, hoping she could go back to earlier that day
The first to approach her was a detective, and he knelt down in the grass as if he was speaking to a child. She couldn't look up at him, could barely focus on the words he was saying. She wasn't crying anymore, but she was close enough to tears that any given thing could push her over the edge.
"Hey," said the stranger softly. "I'm Dectective Chesterfield. I'm here to help."
"i dont know what to do ," she said, shaking her head. , I don't know what's wrong with me."
"It's ok the ambulance is on the way ," the detective put a hand on her shoulder. "There isn't anything wrong with you."
"You're going to take her away."
Detective Chesterfield took a deep breath. "We have to take they to the hospital."
"But what about all they family's ," she sniffled. "they should be called."
"And they will be. But right now, they all need to go to the hosptial needs to go to the hospital."
"So you can save them?"
They both looked down at the paramedices working on everyone. . Detective Chesterfield pressed his lips into a thing line.
"and said i hope so."
oh no a woman scream
"Ma'am," he said softly, but it was all the interruption he could bring himself to give. He let the woman have her moment. He couldn't imagine the pain of your whole family been in a accident,
mrs Shepherd was asking where is my husband and my son tanner they at the hosptial Detective Chesterfield said come on ma'ma ill take you there
She was still crying, when they reach the hosptial and asking herself say why why did this have to happend why she said kept saying to her self
as the doctor leave mrs Shepherd i could heard her say all of them all over them she just keep reparting
"We've contacted the parents of the other boys," Detective Chesterfield's said, walking up behind him. "They were going on a camping trip."
Detective Chesterfield swallowed. He needed to remain professional. "Do they know what caused the crash?"
"Forensics did an onsite test for alcohol on the driver. We won't know how much until they can get it to the lab, but he was definitely drinking."
"He was drinking? On the way to the campsite?"
"It looks that way," his partner shook his head. "Which kind of goes against the only other thing we found on the guy."
Their work provided each of them a tablet, and his partner handed his over to Detective Chesterfield. On the screen was a magazine article from about a month ago, a man in a bold suit standing at the forefront. The headline read "Best Boss Ever", but the word "Boss" had been crossed out and replaced with the word "Dad". If you scrolled down a bit, there was a picture of a young boy holding a baby girl and smiling wildly up at the camera. Detective Chesterfield had an awful suspicion that he was looking at the same baby he had carried to the EMT.
"So he was dad of the year until he decided to pregame a camping trip and landed us here," Detective Chesterfield asked, trying to keep his voice steady. His throat was tight as he thought about the family as it once had been, a successful, happy father looking after his one lovely children and his stunning wife. Now all that was left was the woman across the waiting room at the hospital , who stared empty into the void.
"Right? Doesn't make a ton of sense," his partner patted him on the back. "We can talk about it back at the office tomorrow, though. Just get the reports filled out, and try to forget about it for tonight."
But Detective Chesterfield couldn't forget about this case. Not tonight, and not for a very long time after it was done.