Someone who’s brought death cautions mask protestors
As the U.S. marks 500,000 COVID-19 deaths, I was astonished to learn that a contingent of deliberately mask-less people poured into Trader Joe’s in Santa Cruz — on Valentine’s
Day, no less.
I don’t know what message they were trying to send about the deadly virus. But I know what they conveyed to me, as someone who hit and killed a teenager while driving on Highway 1 near Santa Cruz one night: they don’t seem to realize how easy it is to cause a death in everyday life. (Ed. note: The accident the author refers took place in 1997 when she accidentally hit 18-year-old Roberto Gonzáles, who was riding home on an old bike after working in the fields and died almost immediately from massive internal injuries. She was found to have no fault.)
That they took this chance dumbfounds me, as someone who unintentionally took a life. I wasn’t found at fault, but the fact that I brought death to another human being will grieve and haunt me forever.
Clicking into a seatbelt, like donning a mask, takes a second and causes virtually no inconvenience. Yet when seatbelt-wearing was first encouraged, many fiercely opposed it, strange as that sounds today.
Opponents rightly noted that the great majority of drives don’t involve an incident in which a seatbelt keeps a fragile human body from hurtling through glass. But eventually they — and our society — realized that the risk of death in a crash, while small, is well worth bearing the feather-weight of a belt against the chest. (And, of course, the risk never felt small to the millions who have lost loved ones in crashes.)
To recognize those who have died, and to avoid joining them, virtually all Americans now wear seatbelts — not merely because the law requires it, but because they’d rather undergo a slight inconvenience than knowingly increase the risk of dying on the road.
By the same impeccable logic, drivers now put down their cell phones. Yes, the law requires this minor inconvenience. But most of us postpone calls, texts, and emails because we realize that no conversation is worth the heightened risk of killing or being killed.
Not everyone knows someone who has died in a crash, although almost 40,000 Americans are killed on the road every year. Yet all drivers take some measures to prevent death.
And not everyone knows someone who has died from COVID-19, although it has killed half a million Americans. Yet most of us mask up and do what we can to prevent it — not only to avoid acquiring it, but also to avoid inflicting it.
I don’t want to get COVID-19, of course. But even more, given my tragic experience on Highway 1, I don’t want to give it to someone else. I do not want to bring death ever, ever again, even though this would be every bit as unintentional as my crash.
So I wear a mask — and am astonished that anyone would forego a mask around others and take the chance of being unintentionally responsible for a death. One or more of the Trader Joe’s visitors could have had asymptomatic COVID-19 — and so could have directly or indirectly infected someone far more vulnerable, via their instore confrontations. And one or more of them could have acquired COVID-19 at the store and passed it on to someone much more vulnerable.
As a person who has killed someone, I know very deeply that strapping on a seatbelt, putting down a phone, or wearing a mask is infinitely and indescribably preferable to taking a life. My excruciating experience that night on Highway 1 makes me wish that the Trader Joe’s group had chosen to make their point without taking the chance of bringing death.
To save lives on the road, we save calls, texts and emails for other times and places, when they carry no risk of harm. I fervently hope that, in the future, the Trader Joe’s contingent and their supporters will take similar care, strongly as they feel. I am confident they don’t want to join my contingent: those who have brought death in everyday life.
I don’t want to get COVID-19, of course. But even more, given my tragic experience on Highway 1, I don’t want to give it to someone else. I do not want to bring death ever, ever again, even though this would be every bit as unintentional as my crash.