Chapter 6: Carl

Damn, I thought I was home free. There had been nothing mentioned about the accident for the first few days after we got back from Florida, nothing in the papers, radio or the newscasts that I saw. That is until today. The Westfield Sentinel had a front page story about the accident along with a mention of a reward being offered to the person who saved the Westfield Academy's Girl's Basketball team. The reward was about $25,000.00 which the school, the insurance company and even some of the girls' families had put up. It wasn't a huge amount but who couldn't use that much money to pay off some bills? There was also a picture of the whole team with their coach attached to the article.

I read the story and it mentioned that the bus driver took the blame for being on the wrong side of the road. That was a load of my shoulders to say the least. It also mentioned that the driver, who was also the coach, was pretty banged up and was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. She was ok now thank goodness. Fish Girl, or Cindy Archer as the picture stated, only had to stay overnight for observation and was released. The rest of the girls were also all ok according to the article thanks to the hero who got them out before they all drowned. That was all good news.

What wasn't good news is that they attached an artist's sketch of the hero. It wasn't a good resemblance of me (don't they say the camera adds 10 pounds? - I guess the damn artist added another 10 for good measure) but someone might be able to make a guess using it and the description that the girls gave in the article. The picture did not show my glasses and showed a beard. I wasn't wearing glasses that night because I wear contacts when playing hockey, and I just had shaved my beard when we got down to Florida to get a better tan on my face. It definitely changed my look versus the sketch. I would have to keep shaving for awhile.

I really didn't want to be known as a hero or have to put up with all that comes with that label. It wouldn't be as bad here as it was in the States; the media there would blow something like this way out of proportion and would hound that person for months, digging until he had no private life whatsoever. Here, in Canada, there wasn't much sensationalistic reporting or hero worship but I really was a private person who kept to myself and my family. I was lucky I didn't need the money that badly.

I looked at the picture and I found the Princess standing by the coach. They both had the same last name and they looked similar so they could be related. Rachel Madison was her name. She was quite pretty, but then all of the girls, I should say ladies as they all were in University, were very pretty. Somehow the photographer managed to hide the rest of her heads — it's amazing what they can do with Photoshop these days. Rachel was one of the girls that were interviewed in the article and she actually had some good things to say about me. She specifically stated that she hoped her hero could be found so she could thank him personally as she was sorry she didn't at the crash scene because she was so worried about her mother. Hmmm, I guess the stress could have made her a little witchy but I still thought it was a really great job of photo-editing.

A couple of days later I saw Rachel on a local Sunday talk show. She described the accident and really went on about how well I did. Someone had even made a computer simulation of the accident and they really played up some of the issues like the force of the water, the distance the bus was away from the side of the ditch, the height of the ditch and the fact that the water filled up the bus just after I got them all out. They had even had the side rail piece weighed for Pete's sake! They were making me out to be some type of superhero with amazing strength and agility. I guess the girls, or I should say women as Rachel was definitely a woman, must have missed my floundering attempts to swim in the ditch or get up its side. I don't know why they were making such a big deal about that night; anyone would have done it and probably done it faster and better. As it was I just got them out in time, meaning I almost didn't get them in time. I turned the television off in disgust.