A Life Changing Moment - My Experience

Just over two years ago I went through one of these experiences, it was a situation that could have been much worse, and thankfully it was not. It was a car accident. Not a fender bender, not caused by someone else, and could have been possible catastrophic to my life or my wife (fiancé at the time).

January 2015 my fiancé and I were driving from the West Texas Area to Central Texas to visit my family for the holidays. At the time I’d been completing these 5 to 6-hour drives quite consistently as I had been attending Texas Tech University and then continued to work in the area after graduation. After I got off work we decided that we would go ahead and start heading towards my parents’ home instead of waiting until the next morning. In retrospect, there was no reason for us to be in a rush as I had a few weeks off and it would have been a lot smarter to drive during the day instead of at night on the country roads.

The drive started off as normal and we left the house at about 5 P.M. if we made good time we would get to my parents’ home at 10:30 P.M. For about 4 hours the drive went smoothly. Normally, we have to stop to use the restroom and we didn’t even need to stop for that this time. We were making great progress towards reaching our destination. However, we hit a long stretch of windy roads with a lot of sharp turns and poor visibility.

When we were 45 minutes away from my parents’ home we entered a turn when a large animal ran in front of the car (driving 70 MPH)(dog or deer not really sure honestly). I instinctively slammed on the breaks and began to fishtail (apparently we hit a large patch of loose dirt on the road) and we swerved into oncoming traffic I swung back towards my lane. However, we began to skid and skidded off the road through a fence and into a large field. However, as soon as we hit the fence we began to roll (bounce is more accurate). We ended up about 200 meters off of the road. When we stopped rolling I was fully conscious. However, when I looked over at my wife she was not and blood was running down the side of her face. I was shocked I quickly jumped out of the car and tried to open her door which was jammed shut and our phones had flown out of the vehicles and I had no idea where they could possibly be.

However, a little luck was on our side, one of the drivers coming towards us saw our headlights bouncing in the field and stopped and called 911 and came to our aid. With his help, he and I were able to open the door so that I was able to move my wife to a safer spot while we waited for emergency help. My wife regained consciousness within a few minutes. However, it was quickly apparent that she had a concussion and had an obscene amount of cacti thorns stuck in her arm and scalp. The car, every time we bounced, landed on her side.

Aid was there quickly and my wife was looked over and the EMT suggested that we visit a hospital as soon as possible but that we didn’t need to go with them. The officer on scene continually reiterated that we were very lucky to be alive. During all of this I had contacted my parents and they quickly came our way to pick us up. They drove us straight to the hospital near our home so that we could take all the precautions to make sure my wife had no internal bleeding from the crash. Thankfully, nothing was found.

My wife ended up with a concussion and tendon damage in our right hand. Which, thankfully, over the course of six months fully healed and does not give her any more problems. She doesn’t remember the accident and only remembers the aftermath due to pain from her injuries. I, on the other hand, was conscious and only suffered some minor injuries cacti thorns all over my right arms from putting it over my wife and cut on the side of my head from hitting the door. I on occasion still have nightmares because I do feel responsible for the injuries to my wife. However, I am blessed that we survived and that we can continue to grow together and move forward. My issues with driving have subsided and it doesn’t nearly bother me as much anymore and the nightmares only arise when I’m under a large amount of stress. I also know that my wife does not blame me for the incident and that makes it easier to deal with.

So for everybody always wear that seatbelt it saves lives more often than it harms people. Don’t take anything for granted because you could lose it or them without notice and always live each day to the fullest because you don’t always get a second chance.