The Night My Life Changed Forever

On September 25th 2021 my life was changed forever. I was on my way home from an event I was volunteering at. It was getting late so I flipped on my headlights and started my drive home. I had stopped to get dinner on my way home so I was at the intersection at the highway that runs past my house. The light had turned green so I pulled into the median and waited for my turn to go. When it looked to be clear, I turned left onto southbound Highway 41.

Just as I completed my turn, I glanced out the window and saw the front of a SUV coming right at me. In the time between the time I saw the car and the time it hit me, I had only enough time to scream. My car was pushed into the median by the force of how hard the other car hit me. The force had knocked the sense out of me. My glasses were knocked clean off my face and I remember just lying there; the seat belt being the only thing keeping me from going head first into the dash. I remember the panic deep in my chest and how it held onto me so tight I couldn’t breathe. I remember getting out of the car and my first instinct was to call my parents and let them know I was okay, that I was alive.

Looking back on it now, my car was the only reason that I was about to survive that crash. The entire passenger side of my car was crushed. The door had been opened due to the force of the crash. The hood popped open and I would later find out that was because he had hit me so hard my engine had been forced to the right. The front half of the frame was bent and my tire had buckled. I remembered staring at that car and wondering how I was alive.

My parents arrived not long after the police arrived. I retold the story to each of the officials who asked: I was turning and it was clear and next thing I knew I was in the median. An ambulance was eventually called not because either of us needed immediate help, but because I couldn’t get my heart rate down.

The man who hit me apologized to me and to my father constantly while we stood around my destroyed car. Those apologies made sense as he admitted to being under the influence. I could not think clearly due to the shock, but I knew that something was wrong when they loaded him into the back of a cop car and took off. The responding officer and EMTs told me I was okay to go home, but to call if anything happened. Later that night, the responding officer came to my house to let me know that he had been arrested for drunk driving. He also said that the man was turning on to south bound 41 as well, but would not admit to where he was going. The officers believe he was heading to another bar.

My entire life was changed by one person’s bad mistake. Before that accident, I was a happy seventeen year old who was having a great senior year and after that I was a shaken eighteen year old who got scared behind the wheel. It took me a month before I could even think about driving again and that was only because my father pushed me to do it. It took even longer to get behind the wheel by myself and I still get scared while driving.

I was lucky that night. Looking back at the accident and the photos of my car, I know that there was a good chance that I could have died that night in that median. But the accident may have not left me with physical scars, it definitely left me with mental ones. I like to be able to laugh about my traumatic experience, but that is how I cope. It does not take away the fact that drunk driving is killing people everyday. I am one of the lucky ones.

Just because you drove drunk before and nothing happened, does not mean you will be fine to do it again. I am a living example of what happens when you drink and drive: you destroy people’s lives and their futures. People need to remember that when you drink and drive you are sealing someone’s fate.