A Lesson In Life

I don't know exactly how to begin this. It is not a fairytale, a fireside story, an exciting adventure. It is not happy or fun. It is the story of an accident. A story of fear, pain, and, as I would put it, utmost luck. This is the story of a car crash.

She looked up from her book, glancing out the tinted windows of the car. Her mom was driving, and talking to the friend sitting next to her. Behind the girl, sitting in carseats were her little brother, and his friend. Next to the girl sat her other 15 months younger brother, reading also. The van was relatively full, made to seem even more cramped my the amount of noise.
Looking out the window, the girl saw bright green trees and fields, flowering under a sunny sky, perfect August weather. Only a few houses took up space here, the highway a long, out-of-the-way road, letting one get to Corvallis. On the opposite side of the road, the forest's roots met with the asphalt a shady coolness, but not dark or intimidating in the least.
The girl was hungry, her mom had promised them that they would stop at the next town, and get some food. The time seemed to stretch, taunting everyone. The girl couldn't wait; she was going to stay at her aunt's for 3 days, and go horseback riding, among other things.
What happened next always got a little jumbled, the girl not entirely sure what exactly was real, and what wasn't.
Her mom gasped, and when the girl looked up from her book, she saw a vehicle coming towards them.

Her right wrist hurt. she couldn't take it off the armrest, each movement causing agony. She felt dazed, and warmth was trickling down the right side of her nose. It was noisy outside, and after a moment, she recognized her mom's voice, agitated and scared. The girl noticed that, somehow, the car was turned completely around, and her window faced part of the green metal from the other vehicle. She looked forward and saw that the windshield was a spiderwebbed mass of cracks.
Then the girl was eased from the car onto a backboard. She was moving, slight bumps in the regular swaying of he stretcher. Another noise had woven its way into the ears of the girl, growing louder by the instant. The noise became deafening, a blurring sound of beaten air and moving metal.
Then the scene switched around again. The noise was now muffled, and though her eyes had been closed since she left the van, she reluctantly opened them to repeated requests. White clothed and masked people were moving, one kept telling her to keep her eyes open, and to not fall asleep. The girl was crying now, telling them that, no, this was not supposed to happen, that she had to go to her aunt's- over and over.
The girl was transported to an Emanual hospital, and was later given a hospital room with her brother, where she stayed for three days before going home.

That was 2002, and I am now fine. I received 17 stitches for the double cut right over my right eye, surgery to set the greenbreak fracture of my right wrist, and a continued checkup on my spine, where I chipped a vertebrae. Today, I am still unable to move my spine to a certain extent, and have a slight line of scar tissue hidden in my eyebrow. My family and their friends were all fine eventually, my youngest brother receiving no harm, my other brother getting a serious cut above his left eye, at first thought to be a skull fracture, my mom recieving a deep cut below her knee,( V for victory, she says), and her friend breaking her sternum.
We had driven head-on at 40mph into a double semi-truck that had fishtailed around another car that stopped for a dog. He was not hurt. Both I and my brother had been life-flighted to the hospital. Our van was totaled, the front end smashed beyond recognition.
I was taught an important lesson; to always use the shoulder belt, one that neither my brothers nor I had tolerated before.
I believe that, in part, my family was watched over by my grandpa, who had died that spring. In the cars behind us, and those going the opposite direction, were both a nurse, and a doctor. I owe my life to those at the hospital and those on the way, and will never forget what they did.