This afternoon Alf Cooley and I went for a stroll on the C&O tow path starting at Carderock. When we returned to Lot #2, we spoke for a few minutes and then heard a series of thumping noises. We walked out to the access road and saw a car had run off the road, hit some rocks and its airbag had deployed. The driver walked away from it, but I called 911. The operator asked for an address and I said “Carderock National Park, Parking Lot #2.” The operator said "Carderock on XXXX Forrestal Road". I replied yes because I had no idea of the name of the access road. The Montgomery Co. Fire and Rescue folks took a long time to arrive. It turned out my cell phone had pinged off the tower of the Carderock Naval Research Station which is on Forestall Road and has a Number 2 parking lot. So they went there first. This reminds me of the young fellow who drowned at Goose Creek several years ago because the cell phone call went to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue.
Luckily the driver was not seriously injured, the car not so with airbags deployed etc. A few months ago, I purchased a new First Aid Kit for my dry bag. I put the old one in my back pack for hikes. Upon returning home today I put the old one in the trunk of my car because you never know when you may need to bandage someone or cut them out of a seat belt etc.
I asked Alf to relay this to his contacts at NPS and suggested the parking lots be re lettered A, B, C, D.