Dead Body Along the Roadside Between Grayling and Mio, Michigan

The body of a fifty-year-old man was found lying along the roadside of M-72 between Grayling and Mio, Michigan last week. He had apparently been the victim of a hit and run accident the previous night.

Reports say that the man was intoxicated and walking along the side of the road. The police had warned him the previous evening that he should not walk so close to the edge of the road because of the danger of a car striking him if he continued. Apparently, he did not take heed of this advice.

Did he stagger into the path of the car? Did the car swerve and hit him? Did the driver have any warning that there might be a man in the road ahead? Did oncoming headlights perhaps blind the driver? We do not know the answers to these questions. We know only that the driver hit him and drove away.

Perhaps the biggest question in my mind however, is what could possibly be going through someone's mind to just drive off and leave someone there. Forgive me if these thoughts sound a bit crass or insensitive, they are not meant to be. They are only meant to explore a few of the possibilities that could be going through someone's head that might make them leave someone they had just hit with their car along the roadside. There are other possibilities not mentioned here and as I said earlier, please do not take offense at any of these:

I hope nobody saw me.

I can't afford another speeding ticket.

I have to get out of here before they get for drunk driving again.

I'm too stoned to call the cops.

What did I hit, was that a deer?

What was he doing on the road anyway?

I'll get in trouble for being out past my curfew.

I hope I didn't mess up the car.

Dad's going to kill me for smashing up the fender.

I guess I'll have to tell dad I hit a deer.

I hope he is ok.

Someone will see him and call for help.Nobody looked. Nobody called for help. Nobody knows if he was alive or if he laid there and suffered for hours before dying. No one found him until the following morning after lying there all night.

It would be bad enough to hit a deer, or a dog (yes, I am an animal lover) but a person? How could someone hit a person and not even go back to check and make sure, if they were dead or alive?

What if this man was a member of your family? What if he was of friend of yours? What if he was an important part of your life? Does he have family and friends left behind who are asking themselves these very same questions?

I knew this man. I didn't know him well. He was not a friend. He was not family. He meant nothing to me. He was a human though, and should not have been left as a dead body along the roadside between Grayling and Mio, Michigan.