A simple traffic accident can be dangerous

[ElQueso]

BTW - I should add the following, after having read some comments about the police and how people acted at the incident.

The police were professional. I really don't have any complaints about their actions overall.

I did forget to mention (certainly not on purpose) that the police did ask me if I was ok or needed an ambulance. At the time they asked me I hadn't started feeling the pain and dizzyness that I did later (I was't feeling great at first, but it hit me pretty hard toward the end), but by that end of things I was ready to be on my way. I did mention while we were signing the statement that I was feeling rather dizzy and bleeding inside my nose. Although they made no comment about that, they may have been thinking themselves that reaction was setting in, but I had comported myself sufficiently clearly that nothing was really needed on their part. I didn't insist.

I certainly wasn't walking with a weave, talking slurred, nothing like that.

The mention of the cop about the man's son protecting his father I take in stride as part of a cultural symptom, and part of a cop trying to diffuse a situation which may not have normally been all that bad. The cops didn't see the scene with the jeering kids - they came after the kids had all dispersed and gone into the school. They saw a guy who had a black eye and a bloddy leg caused from a loss of a significant amount of skin, sure, but were probably thinking that it wasn't worth ruining someone's life over.

The cultural aspect of this is something that I do find some fault for here in Buenos Aires. There are reasons for it, I'm sure, but I know too many Argentine families here who have kids that live with them far into what we would consider their adulthood.

Children are both allowed to run free in many cases (I can cite so many examples my head swims, and it's all I can do to hold back my sister-in-law when she wants to join in the fun!), and in other cases pampered to an extreme.

I think it leads to the immaturity I've seen in the boys here, and many of the men who are in their mid to late 20s, and even early to mid 30s.

It's why minors are so protected under the law here. It's why I watched a group of minors, a gang of thieves, sit under my balconey for hours while waiting for their parents to come get them instead of taking them jail, at least to scare the crap out of them, and a couple of guns and knives were found on them when they were originally detained!

So the cop's comment about the son was a little uncomfortable to me, but I took it in his understanding of his own culture in that strictest of sense.

Otherwise, the cops were quite professional and didn't take sides. When I pointed out the obvious fallacy in the other guy's statement about the accident, the cops readily agreed that he couldn't have been accurate and didn't even attempt to make any excuses.

 

[TheBigDaddy]

Your sister in law sounds hot, let me take her out i will make her happy

 

[HeyBA]

Hey ElQueso, we're still pulling for you here. Please let us know about the final condition of your eye. Way to keep it positive at the end too.

 

[Crema Americana]

Sometimes you think you're doing the best for your family by sending them to "good" private schools, but if the experience is horrendous it's sometimes best to send them to a place where they'd feel more welcome and comfortable. Nobody cares what high school you went to anyway. I volunteer at a private school out in provincia - it's not a fancy school, it's in a troubled area, but the teachers and staff are good and the kids are for the most part excellent and well behaved. They're more simple - there's no competition about who has the nicest shoes or the latest gadgets... and nobody really cares about your background since there's a lot of Paraguayans, Bolivians, and Argentinos. It's when you move to the more snobbish areas that a lot of these problems arise. My husband has always told me he would under no circumstances send his kid to a rich private school in capital, since he can't stand the people that come out of those schools. He says they lack "social skills" - which is his way of saying they're douches for the most part. (No offense to anyone, but we've had some issues with flaky ex-friends!)

But I don't think this is an Argentine problem. You'd find the exact same cultural differences if you sent a kid to some Beverly Hills school where the kids tend to be rich, extremely spoiled, and have no real sense of social fairness.

As for the feelings towards poor immigrants, this is true anywhere. Feelings are generally not favorable. Of course with poverty comes a lot of crime and lower standards of living among many immigrant communities which the locals do not appreciate. Feelings towards Americans would be quite different as well if all they saw or had experience with were poor Appalachians and those from the ghetto - not that we have the best reputation as it is. That of course doesn't excuse anything and there's no justification for racism, but it's unfortunately the way things are everywhere when demographics change due to a lot of poor immigration.

 

[Staszekfc]

For the sake of an interesting discussion let me choose the opposite part in this:

You said you were a hair ahead of the guy; I can imagine that the guy might have thought that he was a hair ahead of you...

You drove a bit too aggressively and you got into a fight because of this. You can blame yourself of being not more sensitive to the signals that they guy in the other car was transmitting. You could have let him pass and slow down for a couple of seconds.

I would have been mad and frustrated in your case as well but more because of the conviction that I was stupid than of feeling a victim.

The son that was protecting his father.....come on be honest who wouldn't....

Same as you I have been driving all over the world and your driving style sounds very similar to mine. I drive here every day and enjoy the little action to and from work. When I see however that somebody really does not like the way I drive; I back off.

 

[Staszekfc]

For the sake of an interesting discussion let me choose the opposite part in this:

You said you were a hair ahead of the guy; I can imagine that the guy might have thought that he was a hair ahead of you...

You drove a bit too aggressively and you got into a fight because of this. You can blame yourself of being not more sensitive to the signals that they guy in the other car was transmitting. You could have let him pass and slow down for a couple of seconds.

I would have been mad and frustrated in your case as well but more because of the conviction that I was stupid than of feeling a victim.

The son that was protecting his father.....come on be honest who wouldn't....

Same as you I have been driving all over the world and your driving style sounds very similar to mine. I drive here every day and enjoy the little action to and from work. When I see however that somebody really does not like the way I drive; I back off.

 

[Ashley]

What an awful experience. I really hope your eye heals well and agree with the other posters that charges really should be pressed in this incident.
My experience was far more minor but I can totally relate to you getting the brunt of an angry crowd. I can remember getting stuck in the middle of a crowd on people pushing along a busy sidewalk by the feria in Belgrano about 7 years ago. There were a tonne of street vendors taking up a load of space and people were obviously anxious to break through the crowds. I was stuck between a very old man in front and had this woman behind me trying to ram her way through using her baby stroller. At one point, she hit me on the back of the legs so hard that I instinctively jumped away, sending the old man falling onto a street vendor...This woman continued pushing and batting my legs so I couldn't do anything but hop out of the way quickly (I couldn't even help the old man back up). At that point, the entire crowd (of pushers!) started shouting at "esa rubia boluda" (me) for having ruthlessly attacked an old man...including the cow behind me with the stroller! At no point did they stop pushing through! I felt absolutely horrible. But I've come to find that people generally look for someone to blame here rather than take any responsibility whatsoever for their behaviour (all be it pushing or driving like a maniac). I really don't think you could have done anything more than you did and while it wasn't a great idea to push back (I would've done the same...as would most people I think), you DID NOT deserve to be hit and that kid's father should've been the first to correct his child for doing that. And given that he didn't, I think its especially important that the law should.

 

[hannstew]

Queso, how did this turn out and how is your eye and sight?

 

[ghost]

I'm sorry. I'll take the other side from this passive little hand hold session. You would be feeling allot better about yourself if you had kicked the crap out of that little parasite that blind sided you and nearly blinded you. 75% of the criminals in BA are "minors" and that is for the very reason that they are untouchable.
If he's adult enough to do that much damage with a punch then he's adult enough to get the shit kicked out of him.
Ok, so this makes me a violent person. Wrong, I'm not. But if I took a sucker punch I would reflex and the kid would be toast.

 

[ElQueso]

Hehe, seems I missed a couple of comments back when and just noticed this thread again when Hannstew and Ghost commented today.

I have mostly recovered completely. My eyeball itself calmed down after a few days, the swelling went away and no further problems there. It took a couple of weeks for the hole between the tissues of my eye and sinuses to close up. That was particularly painful because I am a seasonal alergy sufferer and fall and spring suck! (although nothing at all as bad here as it was in Houston!) But the docs told me no surgery would be necessary as it was healing nicely.

The nerve damage is still there to an extent, although in the last week or so that has begun to change quite a bit. I began having some tingling sensations in my teeth and the ridge of my nostril (strange sensations!) and in the last few days I've had about 60% recovery in the feeling. The doc said I should completely recover from that given how the bone and tissue was healing.

Aside from that, to all outward appearances (bruising and swelling), everything pretty well cleared up within two weeks after the incident.

I have been talking to a lawyer who thinks I have a good case. He feels the civil case is the best route to take. I haven't been in a hurry to press forward and am still considering whether I will do anything. At the end, it didn't cost me much except a lot of agravation and pain, since I will recover 100% and my anger over things has subsided quite a bit. I do still think they should learn some manners and probably the only way they ever will is if I press forward.

Ashley, in many ways, I'd find your predicament scarier than mine was at the time. I hate the thought of being in the midst of a pressed crowd like that and particularly if a group of people start blaming you for having "attacked" an elderly gentleman. Things can get pretty damned ugly pretty quickly.

Staszekfc, I just can't agree with your statements, at least not precisely.

As I stated, he started off a hair slower than me, bu it was a good block and a half later that he was forced to pull in behind me. As stated, I had to look back over my shoulder to see what the honking was all about - he was behind me at that point, though not by much, and it's unreasonable to think that I had to slow down to let him get in front of me when the fact is, he only had to slow down a little bit to get behind me to begin with and the car was in his lane.

As far as his son "defending" his father, maybe you didn't understand the sequence of events. His father pushed me first, initiating physical contact, and I only pushed his father back, who then stumbled back a bit and fell on his rear. I didn't make any move to press any attack on his father and the little twit had no reason to do more than attempt to restrain me if he thought his father was in any kind of further danger.

Thinking that he needed to take an unprovoked swing at me at that point to "protect" his father is nothing more than condoning violence for the sake of vengeance - and vengeance for something his father started and didn't leave his father any worse for the wear. Particularly considering that his father pushed me towards oncoming traffic in the middle of rush hour.

Ghost, you're right. I would have felt better in that moment having decked the kid.

In fact, in my younger years, I played ice hockey in Houston where the game of favor was football. Not many people knew I played hockey since we obvoiously didn't have school teams (BTW - I used to play with Kevin Dineen when his father was coach of the Houston Aeros before he left Houston, for those of you who were talking about trying to see a Redwings game a couple of weeks or so ago. We were on a very successful all-star team together. Couldn't help the name dropping ).

I can remember a particularly satisfying incident in the school (high school, my Junior year) cafeteria when a linebacker for the school football team was trying to bully me and actually slapped me in the face open-handed (pussy!). I went blind with rage, ended up knocking over a couple of long lunch tables and throwing everyone's lunch all over the place, but I don't remember much of the fight. I remember being on top of the guy and throwing punches as someone lifted me up from behind by my collar to get me off of him. I knocked a tooth out of the guiy's mouth and bloodied his lip up pretty much, but I had made no coordinated effort. The guy who pulled me off was one of the assistant principals.

We went to the office to see Coach Schwettman, who was also an assistant principal and coach of the football team, and in charge of discipline. I thought I was a dead man, having just beat the crap out of one of his start linebackers. He looked at us, shook his head, clucked his tongue and asked the football player what he was up to this time. To the football player's credit, he told an accurate story about what had happened and I concurred.

Coach looked at us, shook his head again, then told us "you boys have two choices. You can take five days of detention hall or you can take five swats." The football player says "coach, I know how you hit, I'll take the d-hall." Me, I was thinking "I have five practices a week for hockey and a trip the following weekend to Colorado to play in a tournament. My father will beat the crap out ME if I get d-hall!" So I chose the swats.

Coach Schwettman nodded, got out his paper and wrote out the d-hall order for the other guy and told him to get out of there and quit making trouble. And go see the nurse... Then he got up from his desk and pulled down his 36-inch hole-filled paddle from off the wall behind his desk and said "ok, Queso, you know the drill. Grab hold of that chair over there and bend over."

I did so, already clenching my butt cheeks in anticipation of the pain to come. He hauls back with the paddle like he's going to knock a homerun and then slows down just as the paddle's about to connect and tapped me gently 5 times. He told me he admired my bravery both against his star linebacker and for taking the swats over the d-hall, told me to get the hell out of his office and not to damage his star football players any more. Heh.

I ramble a bit, but there's a point.

The truth is, over the years I've managed to get my rage under control quite a bit. I'm a pretty easy-going guy, but I can turn into a berserker when pressed.

It's one thing to face off with a peer or even another adult who may be younger than you are. Even then, many times physical encounters don't come out very good. Although I never lost a fight, that can't always happen over time and I was bound to come out on the loosing end at some point. And there is more than one way to lose a fight...

Had I not controlled myself and let the berserker in me take over with that kid, at the point I would have done that I would have been striking a minor (as far as I knew). Here, there's little doubt that I would have ended up regretting having done that and I actually pride myself on having been able to reign in the beast, so to speak.

It wasn't until later that I found out he was 18. And although it would have made me feel good at the time to have given back some of what he gave me (well, ok, it would have been a lot more), I don't know that over the long term it would have made me feel good.