non-adventures with 911

governeor chittenden road is a public road, what they call a "town highway". it is only open from may 1 to november 1, but it is a public road.

the posted speed limit is 25, but down there in the seasonal part if you have half a brain you're not going that fast, because it's really only a lane and a half wide with no shoulder and has two or three blind curves and is frequently used by cyclists, pedestrians, and people on horseback.

it is also the shortest way from point A to point B wherein point A is my house and point B is my favorite mountain biking venue.

so today i was coming up the road and on maybe the second blind curve when -surprise!- there's an extra wide pickup standing still on the outside of the curve.

and wait! he's not just standing, he's parked!

you know, in the travelled lane.

of a road that isn't quite two lanes wide.

so i'm annoyed by that.

and then i notice he's IN the truck, mouth open, eyes closed and head sagging.

probably he's asleep. or sleeping something off.

but it's not a good place to do either of those things.

but then i'm also thinking: you know, he could be sick. and if i hear later that a guy had to be hauled out of there and i just drove on by without doing anything, it would not sit easy on my soul.

i did not feel comfortable stopping, so i called 911.

"i don't know if this is an emergency at all," i said, "but there's a guy either asleep or passed out in the road on governor chittenden road"

and i describe the location more precisely and the dispatcher hands me over to the local PD and everyone agrees that somebody (meaning the police and the rescue squad) ought to come over and have a look.

two minutes later two cruisers and the truck went by.

fifteen minutes later the truck came back out, which is good news, because its lights were off and that means no patient aboard.

i imagine that after the police woke him up, they probably gave him a ticket, because according to my understanding it is not legal to just stop your truck and sleep in the travelled lane of a public road.

i may be wrong about that, but i'm pretty sure it's not ok.



i am sorry to have caused the gentleman inconvenience, but a) you can't sleep there, and b) if you're sleeping or passed out because you are sick and you are on an out of the way backroad, someone ought to help you.