Читать книгу Confessions of a Recovering Engineer - Charles L. Marohn Jr. - Страница 7

Sagrario Gonzalez was at the Central Library on State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, near closing time on December 3, 2014. As many loving adults are prone to do, she brought her niece and daughter to enjoy the library's children's section. Springfield was the home of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. It has a great children's section.

It was lightly raining when they left the library, the December kind of rain that stings when the wind whips it against your neck. Their vehicle was in the library's parking lot, directly across the street from the front door. As Gonzalez walked down the front steps, two small children in tow, she made a fateful decision.

At the bottom of the library steps was a sidewalk. To get to her vehicle, Gonzalez could walk the 275 feet south to the traffic signal, push the button and wait for the light to turn in her favor, cross the four lanes of State Street, and then proceed back up the street another 275 feet to the parking lot.

She could do that, or she could do what most people seem to do when they leave the library. She could follow a well-worn path through the grass, step over a small decorative fence erected along the side of the street, wait for a gap in the traffic, and then quickly walk, maybe run, across State Street to the parking lot.

The quickest path between two points is a straight line. With the rain coming down, darkness well established, and the bedtime hour fast approaching on a school night, Gonzalez chose the quicker route. It was the wrong decision.

The group was struck by a vehicle while crossing State Street. Sagrario Gonzalez's daughter and niece were taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Gonzalez survived, as did her niece. Tragically, Destiny Gonzalez, the seven-year-old daughter of Sagrario Gonzalez and her husband, Luis, was killed.

I will never forget that night. I was in Springfield, having just given a public lecture on behalf of the nonprofit Strong Towns. I was homesick for my family, especially my two daughters, who were roughly the same ages as the pair of young girls who had been struck. It was 10 days before Christmas. My heart ached, and it still does, for Sagrario Gonzalez.

It was not her fault.