Random Acts of God

In a freak accident (very much in the vein of Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey), a semi-trailer truck barreled off the Dan Ryan Expressway at 5:20 pm this afternoon and into the Cermak/Chinatown red line train stop. The truck barreled through an intersection and straight into the escalator at the station. Two people died and at least 21 were injured. The driver himself was fine and left the hospital after being treated.

This is the stop that I use most frequently, and though I generally prefer to avoid trains and bike instead, today I opted to leave the bike at home because I needed to bring an apple cake into work. (It was Haley's last day of work at the Fed.)

After work, we headed to Phil's for a session of Dungeons & Dragons. Earlier, I'd decided I didn't feel like driving to Phil's because last weekend, I was the designated driver, and I wanted to have the option to drink this time. If I hadn't insisted on being an alcoholic, we would have been taking the red line to my place to pick up my car, and could easily have been on the train at that time. As I walked past the wreckage tonight, it was a sobering thought.