As I've mentioned, I run to work Tues, Wed and Thurs mornings, and I run home on Tues and Wed nights (hubby picks me up on Thursdays so I can bring my laptop to work from home on Fridays).
This week was weird because yesterday hubby had surgery, so he actually picked me up Wed night so I could work from the hospital waiting room yesterday, and then from home today.
My commute home is slightly more downhill than up, and I leave work anywhere between 5:45 and 7:30, with most nights being around 6:30. The commute takes me roughly 30 minutes.
On many Tues and Wed nights lately, my accounting buddy heads out with me, so it takes longer than 30 minutes. We run and walk about half of the way back to my house, then she u-turns and walks back to the office solo and then drives home.
Well, for the last few weeks on Tuesday nights, instead of running all the way home, I have stopped about 1.5 miles short of the house. One of our local running stores has a track meet every summer one night per week for six weeks in a row.
Since the track is seriously right on my way home (no joke, I run past it every single commute), it's hard to have any excuse not to do the track meets. There are two event schedules and they alternate weeks, but the events I usually do are the long jump, the high jump (well, I've only done it for two weeks in a row now and I completely suck, but it's fun trying), the mile or the 1500, the 100, and the 400 or the 800.
And for a couple of the meets so far, hubby has come out to cheer for me.
Well, this week, probably while I was waiting for my heat of the 100 meter race, THERE WAS A SHOOT-OUT LESS THAN A QUARTER MILE AWAY FROM THE TRACK AND RIGHT WHERE MY HUSBAND WAS!!!!
Unbelievable!
Apparently the local police (it's a little city within Dallas called Highland Park) had stopped a guy on a stolen motorcycle (the green one in the picture below). He had outstanding warrants so they cuffed him and put him in the squad car. But, collosal failure, they failed to search him (or at least failed to search him well). He had a gun and he should out the window of the squad car and got out and tried to flee while shooting at officers. So they shot him and killed him right there! And my husband was right there, stopped at the intersection coming to watch me run!
Exhibit number 4,752 that we are different people: almost as soon as the shooting stopped, he got out of his car and went to see if he could help. They were doing CPR on the victim and the ambulance was already there, so the police said no, it was all over, so he just walked another couple minutes to the track. I couldn't believe it when he told me about it. I would have absolutely stayed in my car.
I of course had missed the whole thing. If I'd been alone at the track running, I might have realized what was happening, but of course there are gunshots going off all the time at the track meet, and so you just kind of ignore. There were several runner spouses who witnessed the shoot-out, not just my husband (all the runners were already at the track, but lots of spouses show up later to watch different events).
But I still can't help but think about all the "what if"s. What if it had happened one night later? There would have been a very high chance I would have been running through the intersection exactly when it happened (7:00). What if hubby had left the house a minute earlier and had been in the gunfire? What if the guy had fled toward the track instead of into the intersection?
Insane!!!!
Whoa! Scary. Glad you and your husband are safe. Isn't it crazy how decisions that we make everyday and seem so benign at the time.. could turn out to be life-changing?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it worked out that you were both safe. I'm with you - I would've absolutely stayed in my car. You're husband is one brave man (future hero!) for sure.
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