The Day I Died

Lori's Blog Earth Date 12-17-2010

Today at around 2:30 PM I will officially be 24 years new. On this day in history I got dead in a vicious car accident caused by my recklessness. I was 17 and my dad had purchase a Mercury Zephyr two door for me. It was, as he is fond of saying, "pea farmer green"; a color he despised but it had a 302, power windows, power locks and it was big. Not as big as the Delta 88 I'd been sharing with my mom but not much of a step down. I guess in everyone's mind that meant it would be safe. And in fact the car was safe, I wasn't.

I left school chasing another student annoyed that traffic had come between us and when I got out on my own street I went the speed limit as I passed my house and then I can only guess, because I honestly don't remember, I floored it. About a mile down the road the car sailed off a rock in the front of the house where I babysat occasionally and was still traveling at 100mph or more when it slammed into the tree. The door crumpled as the tree invaded and the sudden deceleration jolted the car to a stop in one direction while the rebound energy attempted to send it in another. The driver's window shattered as my neck whipped my head into it, the steering wheel compressed my chest with enough force to break five ribs and collapse my left lung. Most likely this impact is what stopped my heart. The door continued to come into the cabin space and because I am not an immoveable object it shattered the left half of my pelvis and pushed it into the middle of my body. At that point the metal gave way and the front half of the car with me still seat belted into it traveled another fifty feet onto the front lawn before its unsupported weight dragged it to a stop.

The police officers two cars ahead of me came back when they heard the crash and revived me. I'm fond of saying no one is ever going to save your life they are only going to delay your death but that doesn't mean I'm not thankful for still being here. It just means I know more about the subject than I care to. I had nowhere to go and nothing important to do that I needed to be going that fast. I don't know what possessed me. I don't know what posses anyone. Now when I see someone acting like I did back then I pull over to let them pass and as they do I say a prayer, "Please let them arrive wherever it is they are going safely; someone is waiting for them."

This year our friend's son and his girlfriend were killed in an accident when the car he was driving went off the road and was turned into shrapnel as it passed through a stand of trees. An old neighbor's son was in an accident on an icy night. His mother was told that the trauma to his brain was so severe and significantly overwhelming that he probably wouldn't live. He is still with us thankfully and well on his way to a complete recovery. Unfortunately that isn't the case with another boy my sons went to school with. He careened into one of the stone walls that dot our town with such force that he was killed on impact and the car was unrecognizable.

I share this every year at this time in one forum or another because I don't ever want to forget that there is nothing so important that it won't be there ten minutes from now when I finally get there. I share it because I think everyone gets too caught up in the day to day rushing around from here to there and everywhere chasing things that don't really matter. I write it because I need to see it to believe it for myself because with each passing year the scar that tracks along my waist where they peeled me open to insert the metal plates and pins fades a little more. The dent where the dashboard crushed the nerve in the front of my leg becomes a little more assimilated, and as long as I'm not looking in the mirror I won't know how much my left eyelid is drooping today.

So just for today I would like to ask a favor of all of you. Please slow down and take a minute to enjoy that you are alive. Show your kids by example that there isn't anything so important that you would risk your or their lives to get to it. Say a prayer for the sixteen year old weaving in and out of traffic that he/she gets to their destination safely for the sake of their family and friends who will suffer should they not.

Be safe.