Early yesterday afternoon, on a cold, blustery but sunny day when you might least expect to see a road accident, we came across one that had just occurred. We were on our way, along Innes Road, a main local highway, heading to Richie Feed & Seed to pick up a few 25-lb bags of bird seed and peanuts when we saw a dump truck sitting stationery on the left-hand lane of the road before us as we pulled alongside, and noted that scattered on the road was evidence of a crash.

Further ahead, crossing the red light in the left lane was the vehicle that the dump truck had hit. Its back end crushed beyond repair. Because it had just occurred, there was no police presence, nor were there any other first-responders, although we could see someone standing nearby the grey vehicle with its crushed back, speaking on a cellphone. In fact, there were quite a few people milling about.

Further on, another vehicle was parked, a municipal truck, and two men had obviously emerged from it, both wearing fluorescent jackets, one of whom had applied his muscle to opening a back passenger door of the hit vehicle. A woman standing beside him reached into the vehicle and extracted a child. By the size of the child the woman was clutching, about four to five years of age.

And then someone else was vigorously yanking at the door on the opposite side. Hard to imagine that anyone sitting in the back of that vehicle that looked, even its state, like a SUV as we drove quickly by, surviving intact, with no injuries.

Traffic continued flowing, most people taking the signals from those who were on the scene that to stop and mill about without purpose if one wasn't a health professional, a doctor or nurse or paramedic would be to no one's advantage. As we pulled into the parking lot at Richie's just beyond the accident site, we could hear in the distance the high-pitched sirens signalling the arrival of those responders everyone's hopes must have been focused on.

And then they arrived, within minutes of our having first sighted the accident. First, an ambulance, then a fire truck, and presumably from the opposite direction, police cars.