HS countdown #3-- ACCIDENTS

It wasn't ALL fun and games...

My sophomore year I went four wheeling on a double date.. well, it was supposed to be a double date anyway. Brad Richardson and Mike Cox asked Francine and I to go-- only Fran bailed at the last minute so I ended up going with two guys. It was an awkward threesome, but I was up for the challenge.. It wasn't really anything THAT exciting-- until I got RUN OVER by a four wheeler. That's right. The four wheeler crushed my head. Luckily we were in the sand and it didn't kill me. Brad and I were driving together and when we started to slow down, my right ankle got caught under the wheel. We were on a bit of a hill and Brad got off on the other side of the four wheeler, trying to hold it up to keep it from smashing me. Apparently he wasn't as strong as we both had hoped. It rolled on top of me and one of the wheels crushed my head. Mike was just behind us and came over to see what happened. I believe I blacked out for a minute or so and when I woke up, I was covered in gasoline and I couldn't see anything. They helped me back on the four wheeler to take me to the car (I didn't want to get back on, but I was blind and didn't have much of a choice.) My sight came back within five minutes or so. Brad drove us back to West Jordan and Mike was such a gentleman riding in the backseat with me... I knew he was worried. When I got home, my parents took one look at my head and rushed me to the ER (something that should have been done before I went home..) I had several tests run and spent a few hours at the hospital. But besides a massive black and blue bruise on the side of my head (mostly my neck and left ear) I was just fine. I have not a single picture to show for it, but believe me, it was nasty. The doctors told me that I would have been dead if I was riding on anything other than sand. ((This was my second accident on four wheelers-- but certainly not my last-- This past Fourth of July, Aaron and I almost died just a few blocks from our house. It was all my fault.. I got a little too comfortable driving and seriously almost crashed into the Simpon's neighbor's home. I wasn't going to mention it, but since we were on the subject....))

During my senior year, I got in a bad car accident with a good friend, Colin Wood. It was a devastating.. truly a life-changing experience. I wrote a bit about it last December in this post but there are several things I didn't share.. After we hit the man and called the ambulance, we believed he would live. He wasn't able to move, but he was talking and responding to questions. What we didn't know was that he was heavily intoxicated-- and even though he didn't look like he was going to survive, he suffered from internal bleeding and died the next day at the hospital. Colin came to see me at work (Geppedo's porcelain doll shop) to tell me that he had passed away. I was completely shocked. We had heard the hospital report earlier that morning and they said he was going to be okay. We made the difficult decision to attend his funeral. The snow was falling hard that day and I will never forget sitting next to Colin in the last row, while his family mourned for their husband, father and grandfather. It was truly heartbreaking.

I still hear from Colin. I can always count on an email from him every December 4th- the date of the accident. Ten years seems like a long time ago, but somehow I don't feel any older or wiser. That single event was a big part of my high school experience, but the lessons I learned did not come from any classroom.