4thmaninthecar.com

"The Decision"

One decision, one second, can send you into a battle between life and death.  How many times have you thought, “It will never happen to me.”?  Well, it did happen to me.  I learned the difficult way that one decision can alter your life forever.

It all happened on a dark, winding, two-lane road in Boyd County, Kentucky.  It was early May of 2005, my junior year in High School.  I had only been a licensed driver for two months but I thought I was awesome behind the wheel.  I knew I was a much better driver than my Mother.

I was an honor student and had been chosen to represent my school at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology, which was to be held in July in San Jose, California.  I really wanted to go to California to pursue future career possibilities as a computer programmer.  I had numerous colleges that had written to invite me to come to visit their campuses.  In a split second, all of those dreams and plans changed.  

I don’t really remember much about the night I had the accident.  What I do remember is that I got together with some other students who had formed a car club.  Several of us were very interested in cars and would get together to compare the ones we owned and to talk about how we could customize them with additional parts.  I had a brand new, lightning yellow, Mitsubishi Lancer.  It made me feel wonderful to have everybody comment on how great my car looked and how fast they thought it would go.  But before long we wanted to compare our cars to see whose was the fastest.  On the night that changed my life, I was there because I thought racing was cool.  I thought I would be the big “tough guy” at school if I would win a race, but I was definitely wrong.  I should have thought more about my decision-making back then, but I did not. I must have made the decision quickly and carelessly to race.

On May 7, 2005, I lost control negotiating a turn and slid into a telephone pole during the race.  The impact was so strong that the car wrapped around the pole and broke it in two.  My head struck the pole and my femur was broken in two.  It took over an hour for the rescue workers, some of who were close friends, to free me from the wreckage.  I was flown to the Cabell Huntington hospital where I remained in a coma for many days and spent three weeks in intensive care.  My parents and friends tell me that they were given no hope that I would survive and that if I did live, I would be able to function on my own.  At times I thought, “Oh no, what if I die”, but I did not.

When I first came home from the hospital, I could not speak, eat, or move more than my hands and arms.  The only way I could communicate was by giving basic hand signals for “yes” and “no”.  It took two months before I could speak my first words, which were “Happy Birthday, Dad”.  It was several more weeks before I was able to eat for the first time.  It has now been six months and thanks to numerous friends, doctors and therapists, I am now back on my feet!  My recovery has been slow but has also been consistent.  I still have some limitations due to my brain injury but I am close to being able to do everything that a normal teenager would do.  I am thankful to everyone who helped me through this horrible experience and especially to God for all of the miracles He has done in my life.