On a Horrifying Incident

Caution to my and Anya’s family who might be reading this. Please don’t interpret too much from this entry, the conditions I’m describing below can always be avoided if you’re not reckless and stupid. I’m not exactly sure how to express this moment, but I'll try.
When I first got back to South Africa from the US, I made an emergency visit to the Eastern Cape to sort out some issues that had cropped up while I was away. I was on my way back to Durban, speeding along the N2, when I saw a puff of smoke curling up from the road as I came over a ridge. Initially I unsure of what I was seeing, thinking it was the typical “Transkei roadblock” - a herd of goats. As I neared the scene, I could see that the one other driver in front of me had put on his caution lights and had pulled off to the side of the road. I slowed, turned on my blinkers, and pulled up behind him.
What I saw when I got out of the car (caution readers – this is very bad) was the most gruesome car accident that I had ever seen or heard of, and it had happened only seconds before I had arrived. I quickly surveyed the scene and tried to stay calm. Immediately on my left, I saw two unmoving and twisted bodies lying on the asphalt – there was clearly nothing I could do for them. I turned from these and responded to screams for help below.
To my right, off the road and in a ditch 10 meters down was a City-to-City bus (Greyhound size) which had burst through the guardrail and landed on its side. People were pouring out of the wreckage clutching whatever possessions they could grab hold of. I could see that gasoline was spewing out of the back, so I jumped down the hill and helped to pull the last of people out. I asked where the driver was, and people just pointed to the field shaking their heads. The injuries here were not that bad, just a few small lacerations and bruises. I made some makeshift bandages from clothes, and led as many people I could away from the dangerous area.
I went back up to the road. By now a crowd of people had gathered to view the destination. All of them standing on the side of the road, watching the scene with faces of grave concern. No one could move to help. The focus of attention was the mangled carriage of a combi (mini-bus taxi) sitting in the middle of the highway with its roof blown off. The frames of the windows, still intact, were splayed open like ribcage. I counted four people dead, the most horrifying was a woman (I could tell from what was left of her clothes) who was entangled with the combi, her flesh indistinguishable from the twisted metal of the mini-bus.
There were two people on the road who were still alive. The first man I came to was writing around in pain, confused and complaining of pain in his leg. He had an obvious open fracture of his femur, and was pouring blood from his head. I froze. I knew I had to stop the bleeding, but the thought of HIV made me hesitate. I ripped off his sweater and tried to tie it tightly around his head. I told him not to move, and instructed one of the bystanders to make sure he didn’t. EMS had still not yet arrived.
I moved to the second person. She had a huge open hip fracture and was in and out of consciousness. I tried to wake her, find out if she had any neck pain. I left her when EMS arrived and started working on the first guy. I put on some gloves, got an IV going and rolled him onto a board. He was off the road and in the ambulance in 10 minutes. I went back to the woman. She was becoming cyanotic, cold, and diaphoretic. I couldn’t find a pulse, but she was spontaneously breathing. We struggled to place an IV, but her right arm was broken in two places and her left was covered in a thick sweater. I ripped it off, but given her shock, I still couldn’t place the IV. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she stopped breathing. No response to sternal rub. I started chest compressions with a bag valve. She started breathing again and I breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, it was short-lived and she arrested again. We spent another 15 minutes trying to revive her, but soon her eyes dilated and it was clear she was gone.
I threw my bloody gloves on the ground in disgust, and walked back to the car, not sure what I should do. There were no police to give a statement to, not that I would know what happened anyway. As I got in the car, the radio was blaring – “This just in from the Transkei, 7 people are presumed dead after a combi hit a passenger bus on the N2 between Mt Frere and Kokstad.” How they got the news so quickly, I’ll never know.
Shaken by the images flooding my mind, I turned on the car and drove to Durban, ashamed that I couldn’t or didn’t do more. It’s been difficult to put these words onto paper, but I had to share them with you.