Driver

He was one of the few to receive a driver’s license in 1974 and took tremendous pride in being a professional driver. He retired a couple of years ago and then became kids driver last winter; driving Aidan, Lydia, and classmate Naomi to school everyday. He is now lying in a Beijing hospital in a touch and go state as he recovers from brain surgery. A minor car accident while driving the kids home from school last Friday appears to have been the trigger.

You would never know it by the traffic I faced driving the kids to school this morning, but Beijing did not have any private car ownership before 1984. Now the streets are crowded with mostly young to middle age drivers. You see hardly any drivers the age of our driver, who turned 62 on Tuesday. If you read stories of Beijing 20 years ago you learned drivers, even cab drivers, held a respected position and treated the position with respect. This is no longer the case, except for the few senior drivers left on the streets.

A few weeks after last school year finished our driver told us he would not be able to drive the kids this semester because of health reasons. His doctor had advised him not to sit up for long periods of time. I figured he was tired of listening to three yapping kids in the back seat but of course he would not complain about that.  Having been in a semi working state myself recently, I also figured that after a couple of months off he might change his mind and offer to drive our kids again. Which he did.

School started on September 1st and the accident occurred on Friday the 9th. From what I can gather they were almost home when the driver pulled over because the kids were making too much noise. A traffic control officer (likely as part of the civilized chaoyang campaign) told the driver he could not stay there. The driver took off and drove into the back of a parked BMW 120 (a small one).

I asked Aidan and Lydia if it was a big bump or a small bump and they said small. They said they felt find and indeed they seemed no worse for wear physically. Aidan did lie down on his bed and cry because he felt bad for the driver who he said was hurt. The car damage to Naomi’s parents car (the one used on Friday’s, our VW is used the rest of the week) consisted of a fully dented passenger side bumper. Given how they make bumpers these days it is hard for me to map the dent to the impact, but it could not have been that minor.

The driver at first seemed alert and clear and called Yang who has been quite busy working these past few weeks. The main issue at first appeared to be settling with the other driver and getting the kids/car home from the accident scene. (Unfortunately there isn’t a lot I could do to help given I don’t speak the language and Yang had the other car.) Then came news the driver was not feeling well and an ambulance was dispatched. Yang called me from the back the the ambulance and the mood changed from “I’m sure he’s fine, it was a minor accident” to “He really isn’t doing very well”. As Yang spoke to me, I could hear the driver moaning in pain.

He ended up going to Wangjing hospital which is walking distance from our home and after dinner I walked over met Yang there. He was lying on his side on a gurney in the hallway while his family discussed options with the doctor. They said there was some bleeding in the brain and surgery was an option. The family decided to take the driver to another hospital which had better imaging equipment and when it turned out that hospital didn’t actually have it, to yet another one. He ended up having surgery with the expectation that he would not likely survive the operation. But he did make it out ok however he is far from out of the woods yet. Brain swelling and infection continue to be major threats and it will be a few more days before we will know if he will make it.

The accident by itself doesn’t appear to have caused the severity of injury, it was more like the trigger for an underlying condition which supposedly is a brain tumor (an aneurysm seems more likely for me, it could be a case of lost in translation). The impact itself could have shaken something loose. The other idea is the stress of the accident caused his blood pressure to rise which led to the brain injury. His pride in his job and the stress of being in an accident – supposedly his first – may have contributed. When Yang met him, while his thoughts were not that clear, he let her know that he was waiting for her, waiting for his boss is what he said.