Check out my podcast, Heart of North Tulsa to Midtown and back, on Spotify for Podcasters:
All of our North Tulsa to Midtown and back podcast segments are about short trips from North Tulsa to South Midtown Tulsa.
This podcast segment is called From North Tulsa To Midtown and Back An Injured Marine Veteran And Dad because I was able to do a short biopic story from someone who was devastated by all of the tragedy that he has seen throughout his life.
Including a war which left him permanently disabled and including losing a son nephew which left his life changed forever.
Today started off like any other day. It was in the high 90s and cloudy. I was on my way to pay my phone bill, do some grocery shopping. and to take care of some other errands. The 700 brt south bus route was scheduled to arrive at 46 street and north peoria in 15 minutes heading to midtown
Midtown is the part of Tulsa where most retailers and shopping stores and restaurants and things that are really accessible from the south 700 brt directly. service vendors and businesses. They have assigned bus stops where passengers can go and take care of the things that they need to take care of like paying bills, picking up dinner prescriptions and other shopping. Plus riders can get to other transfer points for other routes along the south 700 corridor. On the South Peoria brt route it’s convenient coming from north tulsa to midtown to take care of business.
On my way to midtown. I was on the bus with a few passengers, A couple of females. One Scottish looking lady in her early 30s medium build with a plain face, round face wearing eye glasses and medium cut curly hair. She appeared to be coming from her outdoor camp before she boarded the bus. Her male companion was pushing a stolen shopping cart full of metal and other stuff.
The other female was a really short west Indian looking woman probably in her middle 30s and had a mouth full of gold teeth with diamonds embossed in them. She was rapping to music off her cellphone. She also seemed a little quirky as she wore mis-matched apparel. Her short was pea-color green and her shorts were florescent blue. She had dread-locks and an outdoors smell at 8:00 a.m.
They were commuting to midtown as well and they were headed downtown to transfer from downtown.
The bus trip to downtown was also slow. Very few people boarded. There was plenty room. Once we made it downtown as new passengers were boarding from the downtown station. One female decided to sit right next to me and the entire bus was basically empty. There was like maybe 5 passengers that was kind of odd but it really didn’t draw much attention for me except for the fact that she was wearing a black halter top with a beige color bra and some short short white black shorts and some sneakers some Nikes and she got her air back in a ponytail back tie back up into a bun. She was a younger female, probably in her early ’20s, but she was a butch looking female with broad shoulders and when she walks she kind of had a little pimp to her walk but she didn’t say much on the ride. Another odd thing that happened was there was this Persian guy and his girlfriend and he was probably five five and had a full hoodie on and some jeans and some boots and he came and sat on the opposite side of me and left his girlfriend at the front of the bus and kind of sat there for a minute staring at me while we were riding out to Midtown. But I was listening to music and probably try not to pay much attention to him. And finally when we got close to our departing destination the him and his girlfriend got off at 41st and Peoria on Midtown. But leaving me and the West Indian girl in the back of the bus at that particular stop. So I got up and and moved the forward to the front of the bus away from the other girl that was sitting on the opposite side of me, the native American girl that look kind of Butch.
Once the bus arrived at 71st and Riverside, my stop was coming up right there close to McDonald’s and so I exited the bus. As I got off the bus I noticed it across the street. There was a an accident involved with. I just saw a female land on the ground but I didn’t notice what had happened to her and I started a video of Cameron the accident and taking pictures of the officer responding to the accident. As I got closer there was a marine veteran in a wheelchair and his legs have been severed. He told me that he had been injured in a war. And he was basically on top of his game until that point. Today he was taking the 700 brt back north.
The marine veteran said what had happened was that there was a Tulsa police officer involved in an accident with the pedestrian.that was crossing the street headed to the convenience store. He said that he had spoken with the native american female. And she was apparently a homeless lady. He said that she was flirting and asking for some money for something to eat. And out of the kindness of his heart, he went into his pocket and gave her some money. He gave her a high five and everything like that. And he had spoken to her moments before the accident. There was another lady, an employee driving into the parking lot. She was headed to work at the convenience store. The marine veterans said she was in our middle fifties. An attractive white woman of his type. You know, kind of blondish with a nice body.
The marine veteran was right there at the entry of the convenience store with the native american woman who was injured speaking at the time. The marine veteran said as the policeman was handling another altercation over at the church he did not notice the marine veteran’s interactions with the native american woman occurring moments before the back over happened. For those of you that do not know a backover incident occurs when a backing vehicle strikes a pedestrian who is standing, walking, or kneeling behind a vehicle.
A Tulsa Police officer hit the native american woman as he was backing into the store lot from the church parking lot. But the lady coming to work was driving in at the same time. As the officer hit the native american lady injuring her the marine veteran started yelling that her the employee to cause her to avoid the accident.
So she swerved around the scene of the crime. Into the parking lot, at the same time as the crime was happening. And fortunately, she did not get hit by the police officer, and her vehicle was not damaged. As soon as the employee moved out of the way she noticed that there was an accident. That’s she stopped her vehicle. Then she got out of her car and saw the marine veteran in the wheelchair. He told her who yelled at her? The employee thanked him for helping her avoid theaccident. She didn’t thank him because she believed in the same things that he believed. She offered him some free food and some free drinks and things like that from the convenience store. And then she went inside to work.
The marine veteran was telling me that he noticed everything that happened and that the officer did not yield or anything like that for the pedestrian. He said the native american lady had her back turned to the officer, so he crashed into her injuring her.
I told the Marine veteran the accident was occurring when i got off the bus, I immediately started recording and taking pictures of the accident to see how I could assist the victim or if the victim needed any support or anything like that in the future.
The marine veteran said that he has great mistrust for Tulsa Police Officers because of a pepper spray incident in a past racial profiling situation. He said even though the Tulsa police officer could see that he wasn’t involved and what was going on and that he was in a wheelchair and then he couldn’t have possibly been the one that ran and assaulted a guy at the nightclub. They still put him in handcuffs and retain him and pepper sprayed him and he could not see for 2 hours because they said that he might have been the one that did it. Because the marine veteran says that the Tulsa Police department is known to set people up and to do them dirty, he doesn’t really know if the Tulsa Police Officer The native American lady saw or not. He felt like that it really was possible that the Tulsa police officer probably could have just backed over the pedestrian native American woman to injure her at the least or to possibly fatally hit her.
Then the disabled marine veterans started talking about his deceased nephew. His nephew was involved in a fatal work zone injury in the Dallas Fort Worth, Texas area. His nephew was 19 years old and he raised his nephew up until the time he turned 19, but he had already been injured in the war. But he did everything he could financially to support his nephew and as a mentor to support the upbringing of his nephew until he moved to Texas. The Marine veteran said that his nephew was really excited about the career move. His nephew had gone to college, and he was studying to be an urban planner. His nephew finally got a job in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Working for the city of texas city of Dallas Fort Worth. And he was making about 50 thousand dollars a year.
One day his nephew was on the highway headed home from work and he noticed a lady on the highway. And, when he pulled over to help, it was his aunt. His aunt was on the side of the road stranded. She asked him to change her tire. He got the tools out of his vehicle; a four-way and a jack and he started to jack up the vehicle. He’s a young man, but he was being safe. He was under the car, not really aware of the dangers of traffic.
A car, plowed into his aunt’s vehicle traveling at 85 miles per hour, fatally injuring him. His aunt was standing on the side by the barrier. And basically saw her nephew die in a fatal car crash.
He was killed trying to help his aunt change her tire on the highway.
The disabled marine veteran got word of his nephew’s death because his sister called him and told him what happened. The marine veteran said from that point forward he had a deep mistrust of first responders. He felt like his nephew lost his life too soon.
The disabled marine veterans story of tragedy is all too common. The bus finally arrived headed back north. I handed him one of my pace Tulsa business cards.I told him that it was my public safety foundation.and The slogan on the card is make sure drivers can see you.
On our way back to North Tulsa on the bus it’s kind of awkward because he had just told me that story. Also, both of us witnessed a back over accident with a first responder and a pedestrian injured on the scene.
PACE TULSA 