It was just like any other day… We were on our way to meet some friends to see a movie. It was after school. He was so happy to be driving. I guess a little too happy. He was so thrilled that I guess he was kind of distracted. We were just talking. It was nothing other than the usual, except Zack was driving. John, Ben, Kyle, Zack and I were just talking and goofing off. Just the normal teenage thing. Kyle was half asleep, and he has this phobia of getting in a car crash, so Zack thought it would be funny to scare Kyle by swerving into the other lane. He told us to hold on and when he swerved, to start screaming and act like we were loosing control. When Zack swerved, I guess he didn’t look behind him. He was too busy looking at Kyle’s terrified reaction. Somebody came up from the side. Zack didn’t have his turn signal on. The other car didn’t see us. Zack drove straight into the car.


We all started screaming like Zack told us to. But that’s not why we were screaming. We all saw the car. I grabbed the wheel trying to keep us from hitting the car. Zack got mad and jerked the wheel out of my hands and made a sharp left turn driving head on in to the car.


Sparks were flying everywhere. I remember the sorry look on Zack’s face. It was total chaos. All of us screaming like little girls. The sound of brakes screeching to a stop behind us. I could taste the blood that was being splattered everywhere. Some of it was my own, but most of it wasn‘t. It was the blood of my friends. I could hear the sickening crunch of bones. Glass shattering. The car as it started to flip over the center divide. There were colors flying all around me. I could see my life flash before my eyes. It was an amazing but horrific experience. Metal was being torn off the car and the scraps were flying in through the windshield, hitting me in the face and chest. I could feel blood trickling down my face and hitting my lips. It was a horrible taste.


I remember looking in to the back seat; nobody was moving. I looked at Zack. He was coughing up blood. I knew we wouldn’t last much more than another minute. He looked at me. He was trying to talk but he was so weak.

“If I don’t make it, make sure my parents know how sorry I am and that I love them,” he managed to say. “I don’t want to die. I’m sorry,” he just kept on saying again and again. The last thing I remember was Zack slumped over, his body mangled. Then it all went black.


The next thing I remember was waking up on the side of the road. There were people everywhere. I heard somebody’s voice. He kept on telling me to wake up. Then he started talking to some other guys about getting me to the hospital because I might not make it much longer. It was all kind of a blur. I drifted in and out of consciousness while on my way to the hospital. I remember the lights and the sirens. I remember when I was little I would always say that I was going to be a paramedic when I grew up. I never imagined that I would be the one in the back of the ambulance.


When I finally woke up again I was in the hospital, hooked up to all these machines. My parents were in the hallway. They had just arrived. The doctor said I lost close to half of my blood because of the extreme lacerations I got from the flying metal. I had stitches everywhere. My arms and legs were mangled, bloody, and my limbs were all broken except for my left arm. I was told that as soon as my mom and dad saw me I would go to the operating room for surgery to repair the damage that the crash caused. I was in so much pain I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t seen my friends since the crash.


I started to panic. There were so many thoughts racing through my mind. Is everybody alright? Are they all alive? How bad are they hurt? I started to scream. I’m not sure why. I just did. It was all I could manage to do. I couldn’t bear to ask such questions. I was afraid to know the answers that I needed to know so desperately.


I didn’t have to ask. I knew the answers when I saw the three large black bags being rolled past me on gurneys, and the mangled body on the hospital bed nearby being covered with a sheet.


It was the worst 24 hours of my life. After the surgery I woke up in a white hospital room with my family nearby. Through the doorway I could see the families of my friends all talking with the doctor and crying. Then I remembered what Zack had told me right before he died. “If I don’t make it, be sure my parents know how sorry I am and that I love them.” It was almost as if his mom knew. She came walking over to my room and I told her to come in. I looked at her and just broke down, overwhelmed with emotion. After a few minutes I calmed down enough to talk to her. I told her what had happened and she thanked me then went outside to talk with her husband. I wish I could have done something to take away some of the pain that the other families were dealing with. But I felt the worst for Zack’s parents. He was the youngest of us. And now he’s dead. Dead at 17.