Catching you off guard

I know, I know...some of you think I am a sap, but what else is new?
After the weekend in Brighton, I had really come to like Sara a lot. She really is an exceptional person who I could waste a lot of time with and still count it as time well spent, but what happened on the way home blew me away. It was one of those things that really shapes your perspective of a person forever, and Sara is amazing.
We were driving along, and had been on the road for hours. We were almost home, when we saw the accident up ahead. Now, Sara is a fire fighter, and she saw that there was no rescue crew at the site yet, so without even thinking about it pulled over to render assistance.
I have never seen an accident like it before. It was utter carnage. A transport had gone through the barrier, from our side, into oncoming traffic (on the M5, a highway like the 401). There was a 200 m section of barrier that simply no longer existed. The truck must have then hit a Range Rover, and another smaller car. All of it happened no more than 2 min. before we got there, so it was chaos, and there were no police, ambulance or firemen. Sara ran over right away, but I froze. I stood by the car and looked at the remans of the vehicles and just froze. The SUV was obliterated, the roff had been torn off, and was 30 m away from it. I looked, and there were 15-20 people who had stopped to help, so all I could think is "I will just get in the way", but if I'm honest, it was more likely I was afraid of what I would see. I don't say this to create a sense of self pity, or seek reassurance, but to better ilustrate the character of another person. Sara went over, and realized that all the other people were just other drivers, so she took charge, simply by announcing herself as a firefighter. It was Sara who knelt in the blood of the woman who had been thrown from the Suv, and saw that literally half her head was missing. It was Sara who, after feeling the pulp that was her skull as she tried to open her breathing passage, announced her dead, and covered her with the sheet. Amazing, such bravery. Sara dismissed it afterwards, but it changed nothing in my mind. Acting as she did was nothing short of heroic. Fortunately, the other rescue workers arrived at that point, so after Sara left her details, we left for home.
I was shaken up by it and I had seen nothing. My contribution was giving Sara her jacket, after she had seen to the woman (amazingly, the other 2 drivers were ok). I can only imagine what she must have been feeling. I am glad I was there though, so that she was not alone, and I could do a little bit to help he through it, although my impact, I am sure was minimal.
SO, the moral here is that there are things that happen, catch you off guard, and they change your view of another person for good. Leaving here in a little over a week will pull my guts out, I think. It really will be one of the harder things I have done. I am torn in 2, but noone ever said that life should be filled with easy choices.