Miracles do happen

April
26, 2018 was a day that was going to change my life forever. I didn’t
know that by that afternoon I would be rushed to the hospital. I
didn’t know that my parents would get a call saying Your
daughter has been in a terrible car accident. I
had to go through, hopefully, the hardest thing in my life. I am now
left with physical and mental scars.

I
remember turning down Taylor Road, but after that I just remember
waking up in the most agonizing pain. I learned later that our friend
was going three times the speed limit and at the top of a hill when
he lost control of the car; we hit the ground front on, rolled, and
then hit a tree. I remember laying there in the grass, in shock,
wondering what had just happened. I was staring at the sky and it was
so bright; it looked so inviting. I wanted to go up to the sky; I
wanted to die in that moment.

Then
next thing I knew I was in an ambulance being rushed to the hospital.
When I got there, everything was a blur. One of the doctors stuck me
with a needle while another started pulling the glass out my legs. I
was in so much pain; then I wasn’t.

When
I woke up from surgery, I remember hearing my doctor say that I was a
miracle; hardly anyone gets ejected from a car and lives. I had a
compound fracture in my right ankle, which means my bone broke
through the skin; my foot was barely attached to the rest of my body.
I broke the middle finger bone in my right hand; I had a concussion
and got stiches all over my legs where the broken glass had cut me.
The hospital gave me a walker with a right-hand attachment, so I
didn’t put pressure on my hand. I had to hop with my left leg
because my right one was non-weightbearing. When I went somewhere
that required any walking, I had to be pushed in my wheelchair
because I couldn’t physically go that far.

I
got released from the hospital the next night, then I spent the last
month of school and whole summer recovering. I couldn’t shower by
myself; I couldn’t make a meal by myself; I couldn’t get in and
out of the house by myself. I’m just thankful that I had my friends
and family to help me do everything I couldn’t do on my own.

I’ve
learned to never take life for granted and to live every day to the
fullest because we never know what’s going to happen. We should hug
our loved close and never let them go; who knows when will be the
last day we’ll see them. My three friends and I got lucky that day
and I will forever be thankful. I know that miracles do happen, even
if I’m now left with physical and mental scars. The most important
lesson to me after my experience is to learn to speak up. If I would
have used my voice to tell the driver to slow down or let me out of
the car I might not have had to go through what I did.