He chose that instant to stumble toward the road again. I slammed the brake pedal to the floor and inched to the left. The preschoolers screamed, all of them, all at once. The next thing I knew the man was tumbling into the ditch. I hadn’t heard a thump, but I couldn’t swear I’d missed him. I pulled the van over to the side and started to get out of the car.

“Where are you going, Mr. Nick? Can I come, too?” Melissa begged. Simultaneously my daughter Stephanie said, “Daddy, don’t go!”

I reached into the middle row and squeezed Stephanie’s hand. “It’s going to be all right. I have to make sure that man is okay. No, Melissa, you can’t come. Everyone stay in your seats.”

I locked them in the van and ran over to the ditch.

He lay face down in a carpet of green, shaggy weeds. We hadn’t had rain in a week so there wasn’t much water in the ditch. Probably no chance he could inhale water and drown, I thought, but I gently moved his face to the side anyway. He was breathing but unconscious. I checked for blood. The shirt was stained, but not with blood. He smelled of body sweat unchecked too long by soap or deodorant.

The mid-May sun, still high in the sky, made the beads of ditch water in his black hair sparkle. I patted his face. “Hey, buddy, are you all right?” There was no response. “Hello?” I lifted the eyelid I could get to.

“Is he okay?” a woman shouted. I looked up and saw a blue BMW parked behind my van. A woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in a business suit, stood next to it, waving at me. “You didn’t hit him. I saw it happen. He looked like he had a leg spasm or something. It made him jerk and fall. He might be one of those insurance swindlers, though. You need to be careful.”

“I don’t see any wounds, but he’s unconscious,” I shouted back. “Do you have a cell phone? Can you call nine-one-one?”    (continue...)