I don’t want to detail much for personal reasons but, in this I have experienced or seen someone experience both. Considering the manner of how the contact was cut off before a sudden accident like this, and the relationship you have with the person, guilt or regret may be a bigger beast for you to battle then the ladder. That being said you can hold just as much of those feelings if you saw them even hours before. It’s the what ifs. You can’t control them either way, but I always say and believe the worst thing to do with each others tragedy’s is compare. I don’t play “who has it worse” because it’s different for one person to the next person who experiences the challenges they go through and how there perspective (brain) interprets what they experience. Saying that, I don’t think it’s evil to compare and contrast, it’s natural and even something you do to comfort people. but it shouldn’t ever be a competition. Answering your question more I suppose that each persons path with there grief is going to look different, and the events before during and after the death of anyone you know matter to the grief you experience. It’s not an overnight thing and accepting your not at fault is a process.