Free will
“Yeah, I know. The results were inconclusive, but don’t they have people watching her after she got out?” asked the hematologist with both of her hands on the wheel, driving her hybrid Mariner in the afternoon traffic. The reply on her Bluetooth earpiece started to break up as she slowly halted to a stop at a traffic light. “Hey, what was that? You’re breaking up, say again.” The broken voice in her earpiece went to static, which was very unusual for a cellular call, and then click; silence.
When she brought her vehicle to a complete stop, she looked down at her iPhone and she saw that her call had ended. She pressed the redial icon on the screen of her iPhone, but she noticed no bars on either of the networks, both cellular and G4. “Perfect, I’ve found a blind spot.”
Then something caught her eye up toward the next block ahead, as what looked like a truck being tossed up into the air by a tornado, except today’s sky was cloudless. She leaned forward in her seat and peered through her windshield at the event she could not clearly grasp. “What the hell?”
Flames seem to erupt up ahead after the vehicle fell to the ground, and black smoke rose up into the air. It was no doubt a terrible accident had occurred, and that vehicles were on fire, and then a sudden flash of something. None of it made sense to her from her point of view from a block away.
There would be people needing medical assistance up ahead. Traffic going that way would go nowhere now in that direction. She could have pulled over and parked, and then hurried on foot to help anyone who might be injured. There was another option.
Kathleen saw an opportunity that required an immediate decision and some risk, the opposite lane for traffic going back the way she came had an opening. Without hesitation, she shifted into reverse and moved her hybrid back enough to not hit the vehicle behind her and to make some room for her to turn into the other lane. She shifted into drive and turned hard to make a safe U-turn.
Kathleen had an appointment and she wasn’t going to be late, thanks to her quick thinking. Anyway the Chicago Fire department would get to the scene eventually, it was not her concern. It normally would have been her first instinct to respond, but she saw no benefit for herself if she did.