Reporter Colleen Kenney set out to do a story on the crumpled brown pickup along Normal Boulevard, on display as part of the police department’s “Arrive Alive” driver safety campaign. Before she could write it, the story took a personal turn. So she decided to write this as a first-person account.

I want to learn the story of that crushed brown pickup at the side of Normal Boulevard, on the grass near Antelope Park, inside a rectangle of yellow police tape.

“Arrive Alive,” says a banner beside the pickup — a message from the Lincoln Police Department.

It’s an older Chevy Silverado with an Iowa license plate.

Who drove it? What happened? Where did it crash?

Who died?

The pickup is on my route to work, so I see it a lot. One day, I see a boy with a bike helmet rush over to it while his family waits on the bike path.

The boy is skinny and reminds me of my son at that age. He’s 15 now and takes driver’s education. So accidents are on my mind.

I let my son drive home from class. It’s getting less scary.

We usually drive by the crushed pickup.

I bend under the police tape. I write in my notebook that the front is mangled like the “face of a monster,” with an “evil chrome smile.”

The dashboard is almost to the roof. The steering column has been pushed in to the driver’s seat. The windows are gone, except for part of the shattered windshield.

I see children’s alphabet letters made of foam. They are inside a pocket on the driver’s door. They are just like the letters my kids played with in the bathtub when they were toddlers — when the foam got wet, they’d stick to the tiles and form words.

I see an “M” and an “X.”

Did a child die?

I remember the time I pulled in front of a Cadillac when I was pregnant with my daughter. My fault. A few more inches and we might not have survived.

I see an empty plastic Quik Trip cup. I see a few packets of ketchup, still intact.

But no blood.

Officer Shane Winterbauer is in charge of the “Arrive Alive” campaign, in its third summer. He found the pickup at Capital Towing a few weeks ago by asking for the most eye-catching wreck.

The police like to display a wreck each summer, he says, because school’s out and more young drivers are on the streets.

Did a teenager die?

No one died, he says. It was from a rollover in March near North 84th Street and Highway 6.

The driver, he says, wasn’t drinking.

“The report indicates he lost control of the vehicle, veered off the street. His truck collided with a tree and then rolled onto the train tracks. He was able to climb out of the vehicle, then within three minutes of that, a grain train actually hit it.”

“That’s pretty dramatic,” I say.

I get a copy of the accident report.

The driver’s name was John. He was born in 1973. He had an Iowa address and phone number. The accident happened at night, about 1,740 feet east of the intersection of North 84th and Highway 6.

Driver transported to hospital but refused treatment in emergency room.

He doesn’t return my phone call.

My husband is a psychologist. Each day, he carpools to the Veterans Administration hospital in Omaha, where he works with veterans who have post-traumatic stress syndrome. These are people who’ve been blown up or injured in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.

Some people get PTSD after bad traffic accidents, too, he says.

(You’ve got to take that same turn, at that same intersection, right away, he told me after that wreck when I was pregnant. I was shaking as I turned the wheel, but I did it.)

“I was pleased with this year’s pickup,” Officer Winterbauer continues. “Out of the three vehicles we’ve had, this is probably the best as far a being an eye-catcher. There’s plenty of damage. So hopefully it’ll draw some attention, and draw some attention to get people to ‘Arrive Alive.’”

That’s the story of the crushed brown pickup. The man did arrive alive.

So did another man.

I have another story.

Last Tuesday, while in the middle of reporting this story, I get a call on my cell phone.

I’m driving home, about to turn onto Normal Boulevard.

It’s my husband.

“Don’t worry. I’m all right. Just wanted you to know I was in a real bad accident. I need you to come pick me up.”

Where?

“I’m at that gas station, the one with the big American flag on 84th Street.”

I drive by the crushed pickup.

I feel calm until I crest a hill on 84th Street and see the ambulance, the firetruck, the sheriff’s cars, and all the traffic backed up and stopped and there — in the middle of the intersection, facing the wrong way — is the white Toyota my husband had been riding in.

The front of the car is crushed like paper.

I see a van in the intersection, too. It’s empty.

My husband carpools with another man who works at the Omaha VA hospital. He’s a social worker, married to a police officer. It’s his Toyota.

He pulled in front of the van. He’s so mad at himself.

He‘s OK, too. Both just have banged up knees. But the man in the van seemed dazed, my husband says on the drive home. An ambulance took him away.

I see blood seep through my husband’s slacks.

A few inches farther into the intersection, he says, and he would have been toast.

For the next two days, I obsess about traffic accidents, how they can happen just like that, even to a usually careful driver like my husband’s friend.

I think about how — even though the driver of the brown pickup didn’t die — there still may be a story to share with readers, a cautionary tale of what could have been for any of us.

Another reminder to arrive alive.

Then an odd fact hits me before I open my laptop to write this story:

My husband’s crash was just a few hundred yards from where the brown pickup was crushed.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.