I've never been on the scene to help anyone, but I did help my mother-in-law come to terms with what she had done after helping out on the scene of an accident.

Last year, on Father's Day weekend, she was driving down to pick up her teenage daughter for a visit. As she was driving along the highway, she saw a MAC truck lose control (we think the driver had fallen asleep) and plow into a car. Minutes before the accident, this man's car had gotten a flat tire. He pulled over and started changing the tire with the help of his son. The son would have been 10-12 years old. His daughter, probably around 6, had stayed in the car. The son had moved a few feet from the back of the car for some reason, and the daughter moved to sit in the driver's seat. The MAC truck hit the father.

By the time my mother-in-law had parked and gotten out of her car (grabbing a blanket she had in the back), the daughter was attempting to get out of the car. She covered the girl in the blanket, trying to shield her face, because the girl had to walk through the remains of her father to get to a safe area. The son apparently went into older brother mode, and just kept trying to calm his sister down. She just kept saying, "I've just lost my daddy."

My mother-in-law got in touch with the mother and followed the ambulance to the hospital. She's a preacher, so she knew a little bit of what to say to the kids.

By the time she arrived at my house, the adrenaline was gone and she was a wreck. I was the only adult in the house not at work, so she turned to me to talk about it. She had turned to religion when one of her children had died at an early age, but these two children losing their father 10 hours before Father's Day really shook her up. I'm not religious, but just kept telling her that she was obviously supposed to be there at that time.

She seems to be doing better now. She's friends with the kids on Facebook and even went to the little girl's birthday party.