Dearest Readers,
I owe all of you an apology. I allowed my life to get the better of me. Bellow is an unedited, totally Beta, account of an event I went through. I'm sharing it in the hope that you will all learn from it. I made a horrid mistake. One that has changed my at a very basic level.
So read on, and know that I shall soon be posting the last of the chapters of the "My Immortal" storyline. It only has fifteen chapters.
So, I'm sorry for the break in posting. Please, enjoy the rest of the storyline.
~Blake
I've been putting this off, but for all of the wrong reasons. I would like to say I'm trying to move beyond it, but I'm not. I would like to say that I'm coping with it healthily, but I'm not. I am hiding from the worst mistake I've ever made. I'm hiding from the event that has forever changed me. I'm hiding from the fact that I almost died.
The day began as so many have. I woke up and got dressed. I dropped my mom off at work and told her to have a good day. I drove to school the same route I've driven hundreds of times. I was healthy. I was a 21 year old healthy, angsty, single and looking, the world will bow to my will for I know all there is to know man.
I got to school where I work as a supervisor for my college bookstore and started my shift on the last day of returns for the semester. I was both excited and bored for though I love my job the last couple weeks had become nerve wracking, tedious, and a little bit overwhelming in the amount there was to do. Our regional manager was in so it was a bit fun. My manager was having him work the returns register, a task that comes with a humongous headache, especially when you work into the equation the fact that because of regulations set forth on many different titles, and because of store policy, a lot of things are not returnable. The customers are usually not completely understanding.
It was fun seeing him a little stressed a couple of times. I respect my regional manager, and I hope to learn from him. But let's face it; it's always fun to see your higher ups sweating it. I had a short shift, but it was busy and tiring. I left work to go to an ASB meeting, where I am the Vice President.
The meeting was more of a headache than I usually have to deal with. Why? It was the first meeting of the semester and we had a very complex issue to face. My President, and close friend, handled her first meeting well considering. When it was over, I headed over to a meeting with the Student Trustee, and close friend, where I was sort of torn a new one.
All in all, ASB was not so much fun. Toss into this that I had been considering leaving ASB and you have me facing quite the unpleasant situation. I sat down with my Advisor and presented her with my very packed schedule and she walked me through the time constraints I face throughout the week. She told me to give it a little time, and to make the decision of leaving ASB later.
After this meeting I grabbed my friend, lets call him D, and we went into San Jose. I had won tickets to see Prince; a musical artist I'm not particularly fond of but am willing to see because, hello, free tickets. We picked them up and I convinced him to hang out with me later that night. He was planning to try to add into a night class anyways so that worked out. We went back to school.
One of my other friends, lets call him N, met us there. Now let me stop for a moment. You are probably wondering why I'm giving D and N titles where I'm not naming other people. These two are built into the events that I'm leading up to. That's why. Anyways, N wanted to join D and I that evening. I sat at my desk, half hanging with my fellow ASB and N and half looking over my studies. When I realized what it would be that I'd be studying I decided to call into my teacher and tell him I was sick. It was stuff I knew anyways, so why go to class. I'm listing this as Turning Point 1, or T-1. You'll understand later.
Well, we told our friends where we were going. They all lectured us about drinking and driving. The dangers. That they would beat our asses if they found out that we had been doing it. I laughed it off. I knew I was too smart to drink too much then drive. I knew that I could handle my self. I knew everything.
N went home to change, and I waited for D to finish up tutoring our other friend. I gathered my stuff, checked my E-Mail, and when he finished we left. We went to a bar in San Jose that I frequented. He had a shot of 151, I had a Mimosa. He finished his drink, I had half of mine gone, and then N showed up. D grabbed a Budweiser, N grabbed a 151 & coke, and I took my half finished Mimosa, and we went to play a round of pool. We played and somehow D won even though by this time he was drunk from his rather large shot (he hadn't really eaten that day). We went back to the bar where D bought N another 151 & coke and I got the other half of my Mimosa. N and I went to the patio to have a smoke, D stayed inside.
We decided the joint was dead. N got directions to another bar and we went inside to broach the idea to D. I wasn't really interested in going to another bar. I was happy just hanging there with my friends, playing pool, having another small drink, then sobering for my drive to drop off D then home. N was jazzed, and D was willing, so I decided to not be a wet blanket. I'm calling this T-2. I wasn't comfortable driving so I asked N if he was. He said yes, that he was perfectly in control. I believed him. T-3.
We drove to this other bar. I came to know the fact that N is a fast driver. We got there and my Goddess the place sucked. It was Goth night, and the building was gross. But I decided as long as my friends were having fun, that I'd go along with it. I went to the bathroom (this was the point where I decided I'd never be returning because ew) and when I got back found out that my friends had ordered me a drink. They didn't know what it was, just that it was the bartender's specialty.
She presented us with them, and they were sweet. I know that any mixed drink that is sweet is trouble waiting to happen. I looked her in the eyes and asked her if these would fuck us up. She nodded. I drank it anyways, T-4. We went and played another round of pool. D was too out of it so it was just N and I. I knew I was going to have to drive later so I didn't drink all of my drink, only about two thirds of it, but it was enough to make me happy and warm and think everything was happy and good. I was drunk. Not plastered, it takes more than that, but I was well sloshed.
This place was also dead. N and I decided that Karaoke sounded like more fun so we decided that we should all leave. I was planning to have nothing but water and coffee when I got there. This was T-5. We got back in N's car and left.
Well, N got a little lost on the way and ended up making a couple of reckless turns near a government building. I ignored it because we were all laughing and having fun. We found the freeway and N drove too fast. I ignored it because we were all laughing and the music was loud and fun. I bounced my head and rocked out. We started coming up to our exit and I glanced at the speedometer. He was doing almost ninety. I told him to slow down so we wouldn't pull over. He told me he always drove like this. I allowed my self to get lost in the music again.
I looked up as we approached our exit. He was still going way too fast. I yelled his name as we approached the turn. Then I felt the back end begin to slide.
Everything seemed to slow down then. I herd the tires squeal over the sound of the music that was blasting. I grabbed my door handle tight. I felt the care begin to tilt. I ducked my head forward. Then I just felt rolling, and heard banging metal and breaking glass. We were rolling. I felt the tumbling, like being in a roller coaster. Then it stopped. I hurt in a lot of placed. The music played for another moment, then stopped, started again, then there was silence.
I just hung there for a moment thinking that this couldn't be happening. It felt like I was there forever thinking it couldn't be real, but it was a matter of seconds in real time. I reached to my buckle and pressed it. I fell to the roof and got oriented. N scrambled out and I followed. I looked around us. The car was in the ditch. The headlights were casting strange glows ahead of us. N started screaming about his car, and I started freaking that we had crashed. We had done what I had always been told not to do. We were drinking and driving.
D was still in the car. I knelt by the window and asked him if he was ok. He said he was hurt and couldn't get out. The car was on its roof. I thought back to high school, to first aid class. In a major car accident you never move an injured person due to the risk of neck or spine damage. I told him everything would be ok. I then started to check the scene out. N started screaming about turning off the headlights. I told him to screw the car, that we needed to help D. I looked at the underside of the car and saw a glow from near the front passenger side tire. I looked closer to see if it was glow from the headlights. The light was moving though. I knew what it was immediately. The car was on fire.
I yelled this to N. We both knelt down and asked D if he could get out. He said he couldn't reach the buckle. I knew we had to get him out, if the car was leaking fuel or if the fire spread to a fuel line the car could go up. Not only that, D would be in danger of smoke exposure.
N started up the hill saying he needed to get a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. I yelled that we needed to get D out but he seemed out of it. I don't know if it was the alcohol, or shock, but he wasn't responding well. I knelt back down and asked D again if he could get out. He started saying he couldn't and asked again for help. I scrambled back in through the shattered drivers side window and started reaching to find D's belt latch. I found it and asked him if he could get out. He said he could so I climbed out my self.
I helped D up the embankment and to the side of the road. There I found that a driver had stopped and was hurrying over to us. He told us to just sit, but I knew we needed some distance between us and the car, plus I needed to check D over for any obvious and serious trauma. I told the driver that the car was on fire, and we needed to get D away from there in case it exploded. He helped me lead him farther away. We got someplace with a bit more light and I looked D over. There was a lot of blood all over his face.
I thought back once again to high school first aid and asked him questions. He wasn't responding great so I knew he either had head injuries or was in shock. I took off my over shirt and pressed it to his face to try and slow the bleeding. He knelt against my hands and started to make small noises.
I looked my self over and finally tried to take personal inventory. I had scratches all over my hands and forearms and was bleeding heavily from a point on my right forearm. I ignored all that knowing it was minor and focused on D. I looked at N at this point and asked him in a high, panicked voice, why he told me he was ok to drive.
The cops showed up and asked us who was the worst off. I told him D, took my blood soaked over shirt from his face, and allowed the police officer to assess him. I backed a bit away, walked a dozen or so feet farther away from everything, and just stood. I held my arms across my chest and finally let my self take in what happened. We crashed. We crashed the car badly. I allowed my self to finally be scared. But then I clicked something off in my head. The fear fell away and I started focusing on small stupid things.
I took out my cell phone and I called my manager. I told her that I wouldn't be able to open the next morning because I was in a major car accident. She asked me if I was ok. I said yes. I thought I was. She told me to get a note from the doctor but... I felt fine. Nothing hurt to bad, not even my cut, and I told her that. She said that I would need a note from a doctor if I wasn't gonna be in the next morning. I said I'd call and get an appointment tomorrow and told her I had to go.
A cop came over and asked me what happened and I told him. I was holding it mostly together, but I didn't know how. He asked me to come over and sit with them, but I couldn't. By this time there was an ambulance, and a fire truck, and so much noise. I couldn't be there within all that. I asked him if I could just stand there, that he could stay with me and I could not be in all that. He said ok. I realized I was clutching onto my phone like a teddy bear and decided if I was going to hold it I might as well use it. I called my dad and told him what had happened.
Halfway through an EMT came up to me. I told him I had to go, hung up, and talked to them. They asked me to sit down and I begged them not to make me. I just wanted to stand, I wanted to be whole and standing and secure in the fact that I was alive and ok. They told me I had to go into the hospital and started checking me over.
I asked them if they could not put me on a board. I flashed on the seatbelts holding me high off the ceiling which had become the floor and knew I didn't want to be strapped to a board. I looked at D and N. N had gauze wrapped all around his head and was sitting next to D who was strapped to a board at that point in nothing but his boxers. I couldn't help but wonder when that had happened. I wondered how long it had been. I freaked out a bit more and started asking if they were ok.
The EMT started telling me I needed to not worry about them and start worrying about myself. At this point I started feeling pain. It felt like I was swallowing blood from my nose so I asked if it was bleeding. They said no. They told me I needed to go in, but that I was refusing to be immobilized on a board even though they really thought I should be.
Then I snapped back into reality. I was alive. I had survived. And I realized the reason I didn't fell any real pain was that I was in shock. I then looked at the EMT and told him I'd do whatever he told me was necessary and I apologized for freaking. They put a neck brace on me, then strapped me still standing to a board. The tilted me back and I was once again out of control of my body. I was scared. I was alone. But I was alive.
They loaded me into an ambulance and I heard that I was going to a different hospital from my friends. But it was near my home. I asked the EMT to use my cell phone and call my dad to tell him where I was going and that I was ok. He did.
I spent the trip talking to the EMT, I asked him his name and introduced my self properly. I apologized again for being immature at the site, and he told me it was ok. We made it to the hospital and I was taking in. They poked me and prodded me, and they took blood and X-Rays. I stared at the ceiling for hours because I was immobilized. I felt pain from the brace that they had me in. But it was ok, I was alive.
My dad showed up. He checked on me, he gave me a bit of a lecture, but it was ok. I was alive and he was there. I don't get along well with my dad. Hell, we fight almost constantly. But he was there. I was 10 again, and my daddy was there keeping me safe. I asked him to go get my car. That was pretty much the only time he left my side. And I don't think he'll ever understand how much that meant to me.
I was finally released at almost 3 am. I finally took stock of how much had happened and how long it had taken. The car accident was at 11ish. All this had happened in just four hours. Dad drove me home in my car. We woke up my mom and told her (my dad let her sleep since the EMT had told him on the phone I was ok. He didn't want to worry her until she could see me up and ok). She freaked but that was to be expected.
The next day D woke me up with a call. He told me he was ok and asked me how I was. We talked a bit, then we disconnected. I hurt badly, but I tried to go about my day normally. I went to work. I made it through till 5:00 when I started having bad experiences like sweating when it was actually cool, and not being able to lift somewhat light things, and getting dizzy. I left work early, called my teachers and told them I wouldn't be in class that night or tomorrow, and went to the hospital. They took X-Rays of my arm, and took more blood, and ran labs. They told me I was lucky. They didn't have to, I knew it.
I had been ignoring calls from N. I was mad at him for freaking and not helping my with D. I was mad at him for driving when he wasn't ok to drive. So as cruel twists of fate go, he was in the same waiting room when I got back from having the tests done. So was his mom. He told me he had been arrested, and had lost his license. I wanted to smack him and tell him we had almost lost our lives, to hell with jail time and cards.
N apologized to me, his mom apologized to me. I answered their questions, and stopped being angry. We split up when we were called in by different doctors. N got my full contact info and D's for the insurance company.
I got a clean bill of health, for the most part, and prescriptions to reduce the chance of infection in my scrapes, muscle relaxants, and vicoden. I drove to the pharmacy and finally had time to think over what had happened.
It was then that I singled out all of the turning points. I call turning points because they were the exact moments when my own personal decision led to this happening. A different choice at any of those points would have led to situations where we wouldn't be in a car with N driving intoxicated.
The accident was Wednesday night at about this time, 11:21 pm. It is exactly 48 hours later.11:21 pm, Friday September 10, 2004. What has changed? Everything. Everything has changed. I'm 21 years old. I know nothing of the world. I'm ignorant and learning. I'm thankful to be alive. And I'm scared. I almost died. I don't know how a person can change in 48 hours, but I have. Looking back I was rearing to bounce out into the world. Nothing could ever happen to me. Nothing could ever hurt me.
I've been touched by the cool hand of fate. I've learned that every decision leads you to a possible future. That you need to think clearly and weigh the possibilities. It's been 2 days since I almost died. I'm completely different. I still not over it. I don't know what any of this means. I do know two things though.
I'm incredibly lucky to be alive.
I'm now ready to live my life with the knowledge that I don't really know anything.