There’s a town in Vancouver called Salmon Creek. One of the best known and loved local names is Caran Johnson, who dutifully and helpfully tweets the morning traffic conditions each day.
She helps commuters know which roads to avoid, where the congestion is worst, if there’s a set of lights out and reports on any accidents.
Just a few hours ago, without even realising it, Caran Johnson live-tweeted her own husband’s death.
She began by tweeting about a crash involving two cars just after lunch time. She kept tweeting the traffic, updating her followers on the crash as news came tonight. And then slowly but surely she came to the realisation that her husband was in one of the cars.
Her last tweet reads: “it’s him. he died”.
There has been a phenomenal reaction to Caran Johnson’s tweets and social media has been overwhelmed with strangers expressing their support, sending their love and sharing in this poor woman’s grief.
You can read how this distressing story unfolded below, as this woman live tweets her husband’s death unknowingly:
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When I first read this, I was shocked and devastated for the poor woman...until I read that 5 hours after the final tweet she tweeted again, making comment on the fact that her followers had increased from 500-odd to 1,000-odd since the accident. And then I questioned the weirdness of what seems to be a serious twitter-addiction. It doesn't take away from the awful thing that happened to her, but gosh it made me look at her differently! Social media is really getting crazy.
This is so sad, so tragic. I personally can see why she did keep tweeting. Whilst I do not know exactly how I would be in this situation as I haven't faced it, I can see myself in her shoes, trying to continue with a 'normal' activity at the same time trying to process the information that is coming in, with a large dose of keeping on doing that normal activity which is for 'other people' and therefore it wont be ME that is affected.
I can imagine a thought process along the lines of: "I do this for others. I tweet for others, about the traffic that may be impacting their lives, so if I continue to do that, then I'll hopefully confirm that indeed this accident is about some other poor people, not me."
At the same time as feeling a sinking feeling it could be my husband, affecting me, but "hey if I keep on tweeting, maybe the world will stay normal and the way it has been, where my husband is alive, and all is well, I am getting beside myself with worry, but if I hang on tight, I'll soon find out it's just a horrible mistake", then when you can't deny it any longer you just want to get the hell off there and start to wrap your head around it, so you send a short text "it's him. He died"
Yes, I can see why she kept on twitter myself. My heart goes out to her and her family.