Aftermath

Whenever I bruise my muscles by overwork I find I am a little sore the next day but that the real pain doesn't hit until another day later. I see the same thing happens when I "bruise" my brain. I could not stay asleep last night and keep waking up with my mind racing and images of what had happened down on the river playing over and over in my head. Yesterday was a day spent reading or talking about the accident.

First, our weekly paper came out a day early with a big photo of the overturned sprayer plastered across the front page and me misquoted in the article. A lot of people wanted to talk to me about it- not the quote, the accident. Second, it turns out that the police did not make up a report (just some notes) or take pictures of the accident scene so the insurance people for the CO-OP (owner of the sprayer and Gary's employer) and the man driving the truck wanted to talk to me. I did not want to talk to them as I do not trust insurance companies but after finding out the police did not have a report I make two copies of my blog entry and gave one to each side. One of them wanted me to sign the copy I gave to him but I refused. I really do not want to help these guys but I know both the man in the truck and the man at the CO-OP who asked me if I would be willing to talk to their insurance people. If there had been a full police report I would have stayed out of it.

The sprayer is still in the river and what was left in the holding tank has been pumped out. The thing is, something did leak into the river. I saw it when I climbed up to the roadway after the accident. I ask someone what it was and they said it was an unknown chemical. Which means it was either a herbicide, insecticide, or a fertilizer. Later the CO-OP said the tank did not leak and what people saw in the river was liquid soap that is used in the spray arms. We did find out that the tank contained two very powerful herbicides called Roundup and Atrozine. I don't know what leaked into the river but those two things kill anything they touch so we will find out soon enough.

Gary Brown's funeral is next week and at first I thought I would go but now I am not sure. The farther I get away from the accident emotionally the less connected I feel to him. As I said before, I did not know Gary or any of his family and so I don't think I really belong there.