10 years ago today...

I was in a horrible car accident. I'm not sure why, but I still think about it. I would say I think about it at least a few times a week, but it's always in the back of my mind. It was a moment in my life that I realized I was not invulnerable. It's why if you ever get into the car with me, I will make sure you have a seat belt on. Don't even think about giving me an excuse, just put it on. I really think, for whatever reason, God decided to give me another chance that day. If things were just a little different I could have died. But for some reason, other than a couple little cuts and bruises, I was unharmed. I'll never forget that day, and I've never really wrote about it, so I felt the need to get it all out. So here's the story:
It was February 12, 1997 and my friend at the time, Nicole and I were on our way to the auto show. Every time the auto show comes around I think about it. In fact, my sister is going to the auto show today and I thought about saying something to her, but I held my tongue. I was a little annoyed because Nicole was taking her time with everything- as usual. When she pulled up in my driveway late, I came out and got in her car. I think it was a late model blue Cavalier. I know it was blue though. When I got in the car, she was doing her makeup. We sat in my driveway for about 15 minutes while she put her face on. I was not especially patient, but I was shy at the time, so I didn't say anything about it. Then we pulled out, and went to the gas station on 151st and Cicero. Again, I waited while she filled her car with gas, and went in and got cigarettes. She had debated about getting them because she still had a few left, but she ended up getting them anyway. She got back in the car and we pulled out onto Cicero heading south. We were probably going to 159th to get on 294. The song "Strawberry Wine" by Deanna Carter was playing on the radio and we were belting out the lyrics. She slowed a bit to light her cigarette, and once it was lit, she sped up a little. I think were were maybe going 5 over at the time. I bent down to get my sunglasses out of my purse. It was a very bright morning and the sun was bothering my eyes. I saw him. His rusty red Ford pickup was sitting on the median. He was facing north and he was waiting to turn left. There were no cars in front of us and none behind us. I sat back up and put my sunglasses on. Nicole slowed down a little wondering if he was going to turn. For some reason, he had that antsy look. Not the driver himself, but the truck. You know what I mean, if you drive a car, you just know when a car looks like its going to do something. I can't explain it. We anticipated his turning, but then he didn't turn. So, Nicole sped back up. It was too late for him to turn. But that's when he did. We didn't have enough time to breathe much less for Nicole to brake. I think I pulled in air to let out a scream, but I never got that far. I remember seeing rust, and grill, and the Ford symbol in my face. I think I closed my eyes and I think I remember hearing the initial sound of his truck hitting Nicole's car. But I can't be sure. I know now that I blacked out, but I didn't think I had at the time. But there is a gap in my memory from when I saw that Ford symbol to when I woke up in the car and we were facing east and we were in the northbound side of Cicero. At least I think we were. I was a little turned around I guess you could say. Now that I think about it, maybe we were on the median, because later I remember the ambulance being on the northbound side. I heard sirens and commotion outside the car. I was pretty disoriented, but I remember feeling like we were moving. It felt like someone was moving the car. I'm not sure if anyone would have done that, but I remember feeling like I thought someone was pushing the car. I remember hearing Nicole saying "Breathe, breathe, breathe." I don't know if she was talking to herself or to me. Then I realized I wasn't breathing. I can't explain to you the panic that rises out of you when the wind is knocked out of you that forcefully. I made myself calm down and dug down deep for the tiniest bit of breath and and sucked it in. The sound that came from me was horrible and guttural. But I could breathe again. That's when I opened my eyes. The dashboard was in my face and I didn't know why. "Tell them you had your seat belt on," Nicole said. "Don't tell them we weren't wearing them," she warned. For some reason I was really scared they would do something to us because we didn't have them on, so I agreed. I looked up at her to see if she was OK. I'll never forget that moment. Nicole had light blond hair and piercing blue eyes. And blood was pouring down her face. All I could see was those three colors. The yellow of her hair, the bright blue of her eyes and they terrifying red blood. "Are you OK?" I asked with what I'm sure was a horrified expression on my face. She looked in the rear view mirror and said "I look like I just came out of a horror movie!" She did, but I didn't say anything. I looked back in front of me and I wondered why the dashboard was in my lap. then I realized I was looking up at Nicole. I looked behind me and the empty seat was there. I must have slid off the seat, I thought. I started to feel the pain on my legs and on my temple. I reached up my hand to feel my head and I had blood on my hand. There was small piece of glass in my finger, but I didn't find that out until 2 weeks later. When I touched my temple, my hand came away with more blood, but not a lot. I hadn't slid off the seat. I looked up at the windshield and both sides were spidered. I had turned my head and hit my head on the windshield, and slammed back down onto the floor of the car while the pick-up continued to crash into us. In the end, the dashboard was in my lap crushing my legs. I was pinned. I tried to move, but I couldn't move my legs. I could feel my feet, so I thought I was ok, but I just couldn't get out from under the dash. It was a little unnerving. Nicole had hit the windshield too, but she hadn't been lucky enough to turn her head. Her face hit the windshield and she had tiny pieces of glass in her face. That's why her face was bleeding. They were getting her out first. I didn't mind, I was so tired, I felt like I could sleep while they did their thing. They could take their time. They pulled her out of the drivers side and I said goodbye to her. It felt like hours went by and I was still in the car. They kept asking me if I was OK, and I said I was, but I didn't know what was going on. I just told them my legs hurt. After a while, I heard something powerful and loud next to me. I had no idea what was going on and I think at that point I started to cry a little. I began to realize I was freezing cold. I just wanted this all over with and I wanted to go home. I looked down at my legs and I was upset because I had saved up a lot of my money for a great pair of Ambercrombie and Fitch jeans. 50 bucks. I was so proud of myself for being able to buy them and they fit so nice. Now they were torn and bloody and later the paramedics made ribbons out of them to get to my legs. I'll never buy another pair of Ambercrombie jeans again. When I thought I was going to freeze to death and I could stand no more of that horrible sound in my ear, my savior showed up. A firefighter came in the car, sat down in the seat behind me, covered us both with a blanket and he held me close. His name was Randy and he told me they were using the jaws of life to get the dashboard off of me. At the moment they were about to lift the dashboard and the windshield off of me. The blanket was to catch any glass that fell on me. I never saw his face, but I completely romanticised him. I had a crush at the time on a kid named Randy, so in my mind, my firefighter had red hair just like my crush. Randy the firefighter was gorgeous and big and strong and everything a teenager could ask in a knight in shining armor. I, of course, fell in love with him. He held me close and talked to me, trying to keep my mind off of what was going on in the world outside of our little blanket haven. I just rested my head in his lap while he talked to me. I never did see his face. Later, in the hospital, he popped his head in my room to see if I was OK, and when the other paramedics told me he had just popped in, I tried to get up to see him and thank him. I was strapped to a board and had a c-collar on and all the paramedics forced me back down telling me not to get up. That's OK. I like romanticising him and thinking he was beautiful. He is for what he does every day. They finally pulled me out of there and I had my first ride in an ambulance. I kept asking them to turn on the siren, but they didn't. I know now it's because I was pretty much fine. I remember one of the medics asking me if I had my seat belt on and I told him yes. It's funny to me now, because they knew I didn't. I had spidered the windshield. Of course I didn't have it on. He told me, "Well, it's a good thing you did, because you probably would have died in that accident had you not had it on. You probably would have been thrown through the windshield." I thought about that for a minute and said, "Yea, good thing." I know now that he had said that to scare me into wearing it. It worked. I won't go anywhere, even down the street without wearing it now. They kept the board and c-collar on me until they did x-rays and determined I had no spinal injuries and hadn't broken anything. My legs were scraped up and were already black and blue from the dashboard, but I didn't even need any stitches. I had a small cut on my ring finger on my left hand up by my fingernail. I pulled a sliver of glass out of the cut two weeks later. I had no idea it was in there. I also had a small cut on my temple from where I hit the windshield. I was lucky. When I was leaving the hospital, Nicole was still having her face stitched up. She had cuts on her eyelids, forehead, her nose, cheeks and her chin. It was awful. I was very lucky I didn't have anything wrong with me. I was lucky to still be alive. I'll never forget that day. For a while after, I would cringe every time I saw a car on the median waiting to turn left. I still do every once in a while. I'm pretty skittish when I'm not driving the car. It's a habit I have now that annoys me. But, I always wear my seat belt and I make sure everyone else in the car does too. I hope that is a habit that I will never grow out of. 10 years is a long time, but it's amazing the amount of detail I remember from that day. I'll probably never forget it.