Not Worth It
My name is Emily. I am currently 19 years old but I was 18 when I was in the accident. I was meeting a friend, who was 20 at the time, to go get something to eat…nothing out of the ordinary. I got in the truck and I did know that he had been drinking, just not how much. I was not drinking. I got in the car and went to buckle my seatbelt. The seatbelt did not work so I left it for a second. I felt weird with it not on, from habit of always wearing it, so I tried again, a little harder this time, and it worked. We were in the truck for about 3 minutes before the accident happened.
We were going down a two way road, one lane each way. The speed limit is 55 mph on this road. We were driving when he decided he wanted to pass about 6 cars. We went on the shoulder and he increased our speed to 90 mph. He lost control of the truck and we went into oncoming traffic. After missing a vehicle head on, we came back into the correct lane and started losing control again. There was a big curve coming up. The truck, going sideways at this point, hit a guard rail. He was not wearing his seatbelt but I was. He was ejected from the truck and I was inside. After hitting the guard rail, the truck flipped over it, rolled 3 times down a hill and smacked a big tree which stopped the truck and put it back right side up. I was unconscious at the time and the truck was on fire. Someone ran down the hill, cut my seatbelt off, and pulled me out of the truck. Minutes after I was pulled out, the truck exploded. I had to walk a quarter mile down railroad tracks where I sat waiting for an ambulance.
He broke quite a few bones and lost his left leg from the knee down. I suffered major head trauma as well as permanent partial loss of vision in my left eye. Both of us were SO lucky to have made it out of an accident of this degree. He had minutes before he would have bled out and I had minutes before the truck exploded.
Unfortunately, we are no longer friends. In the beginning, I supported him and never blamed him for what happened to us. He just showed no remorse for what he did to me and put me through. I even had to drop out of my second semester of college. All I wanted was for him to see how my life was impacted. My life was almost taken away from me in an instant at the age of 18. He lost a limb but all of my injuries are internal. I remember everything from the accident. He remembers nothing. I constantly have nightmares and flashbacks of that day. I have anxiety being in a vehicle. I just want him to recognize all that he has put me through, all that was taken from me that day, and all that I have to now deal with when I should not have to worry about stuff like this.
All of that being said, I am so grateful for the life I am able continue to live. There are so many people out there who have been in accidents less severe than ours who do not make it. We were spared. I tend to question why we were given another chance and I still, 6 months later, dwell on the “what ifs.” I know that with time I will heal. My life has changed forever because of this, some for the better and some for the worse. It gave me a whole new perspective on life. I just have a hard time getting through the emotional part of this. Wounds heal, the emotional toll it took on me is seeming to take longer to heal properly. No one else can relate to me other than trauma victims and that is why I joined this. I think it is what I need to be able to overcome this challenge. I would love any feedback from others.
Please everyone, do not drink and drive. We were the lucky ones. Not everyone is given the chance we were. It is not worth risking your own life or the lives of others. I promise drinking while intoxicated it NOT worth it.
