Winter Vacation

It is finally winter vacation; a time where there is no stress and no homework. I am having the time of my life skiing down the Mammoth Mountains. It's the last day of winter vacation and its time to go home. My family and I pack up our bags and load into the car. We are on the freeway, reminiscing, laughing and having the time of our lives. That is, until the accident.

It's now 11:00 at night, the only illumination is from the cars headlights. Suddenly, we see a black object fly out from under the car in front of us. The passenger in the front seat instinctively yells, "watch out!!" as she ducks her head. To avoid the object, my mother tries to swerve the car to the right. The back of our car hits the middle divider of the freeway. The airbags engage and now the entire left side of the car is enclosed in the exploding airbags. My mom now has zero vision along the entire left side of the car. Full of fear, she blindly swerves the car to the right. The car loses traction and is swerving, finding it's own path. We go across five lanes of the freeway. The car slams into the wall on the other side of the freeway. The impact is so great that we were flung into the middle of the freeway again. We are now in the middle of the freeway, having ping-ponged back and forth. Death runs across my mind. We swerve across three more lanes, unable to gain control and hit the wall for the third and final time. After I push the airbag off my face, I realize my leg is pinned and is gushing blood.

Stunned, I try to free my leg. I cant, its stuck. I pull it harder, I scream from the pain. After one final pull, my leg is freed! My mom shoulders her door open to get to me and instinctively wraps up my leg to staunch the blood flow. I'm taken to the hospital. I have x-rays and the gash in my leg is sutured. I'm released the next day. Besides the limp that I have for the next three months, my nightmare is over.

When you face a life or death situation, it puts things into perspective for you. I no longer care about the meaningless stuff that most teenagers care about. I care about things like my family and everyone's health. I care about my religion and god. I care about making a difference in this world and making people happy. That night changed my life. It made me a better person. I learned to live every day to the fullest and truly enjoy every moment I'm alive because at any moment it can be taken away.