Crash and burn

At that very moment I told her to hang on! But wait let me start over, it was late February 2019, and I was going up to Husson University to spend time with my sister and younger sister. It was late and a long ride on the highway trying to keep up with my older sister so that I didn’t get lost. About an hour and 45 minutes of driving, we finally arrived at the school where my sister’s friend got out of her car to come help me park somewhere so I didn’t have to walk very far. Finally, we got inside and It was really late, so we decided to get some rest and hangout the next day.Around 7 am my sister came back from her only class that day and woke me and my little sister up so we could go down to grab and go food hall and get something to eat. I grabbed honey nut cheerios of course, as we walked back up to the dorm room we were trying to decide what we wanted to do for the day before we had to head back because it was supposed to snow. We finally came to the decision of just playing some board games and watching a movie. Little did we know the snow was starting to fall, we lost track of time! Quickly my sister and I gather our bags and get ready to head back home. We get outside and say goodbye to my older sister. Once we get in the car we turn GPS on and watch as my sister gets farther into the distance.On the highway, my sister and I are listening to music and she’s playing games on her ipad asking continuously “are we almost home?”

I getting so irritated with that girl, but hey what can you do? All around us were cars getting on and off exists one after the other and I’m hoping my GPS will tell us soon so that we could get off. But no, we still had an hour and 20 minutes. Now there’s 4 lanes of traffic which made me really nervous because it was snowing and there were cars all around me. After about 10 minutes, finally turns back into 2 lanes. I moved into the far-left lane because cars are merging on. I decided that I was going to stay in that lane for a while as cars continued to merge. With about an hour and 5 minutes left until we arrive at home is when it all changes, it had to be one of the scariest things I have ever had to deal with.A few moments later an 18 wheeler starts merging onto the highway, keeping in mind I am still in the far- left lane because well I was letting him merge, there was a smaller red car in front of me as he was merging and we were going a good 65 mph. The driver of the 18 wheeler decided he wanted to come into the lane that I was in. With no blinker he just continues into my lane half in mine half in the other the car in front of me responds immediately slamming on the breaks because no one was behind us. I obviously try and do the same, but my brakes are full of snow and my car is not slowing down. I know at this moment I need to stay calm for my sister. I start tapping the breaks in hopes it will work, but i’m not slowing down in time.

So I had to make a choice. Do I hit the car in front of me? Hit the 18 wheeler and cause a lot of injury? Or swerve into the next lane and hit the guardrail? At that very moment I told her to hang on. I hit the guardrail going about 60 mph, we hit it a few times and finally the car came to a stop. We were flipped around, and the snow stopped us at the edge of the guardrail it built up so high on my car it was up to my window, and I couldn’t get out of that side. I climbed out and helped my sister out as we panicked and called my mom. I grabbed a blanket from my car and wrapped my sister up to keep her warm, as we called the cops and my sister’s boyfriend was on his way to help us.This mistake made by another driver on the road caused my sister and I pain, we took the consequences of his actions. It made us afraid to be in cars and on the highway for a while, I didn’t drive for a week after that accident because I was too afraid of this happening to me again. My little sister had a really sore back from the spinning and hitting the snow, and I had a slight concussion from smacking my head off the window. This driver’s mistake took my confidence and turned it into fear. I will never be the same on the highway again and I have not gone to see my sister since then, and my little sister still has not ridden in a car with me and it’s October 10th, 2019, and that is the story of how mistakes can impact and change other’s lives.

Photo by Carlos Ebert on Foter.com / CC BY