I believe that life is truly precious. Unfortunately death can sweep you away in one instant. Some people let death sweep you away, But others are too stubborn to give up. I’ve experienced this along with two other people as well.

It was November 11th, 2009 I was at my local church for children enjoying my time watching Veggie Tales. I got picked up relatively early around 7:45. I was expecting to see my mother and stepfather but instead it was my stepfather and brother. When I got into the car everything was fine, my stepfather turned on the radio the music was blasting, I was singing my heart out to Justin Bieber’s song One Time laughing along with my brother, And that’s when everything went black.  Numb. That’s what I felt. I opened my eyes and saw all the stars in the sky. I didn’t know what happened. All I knew was that I was lying on the sidewalk of a highway and I couldn’t feel my right arm. I turned my head to see my brother lying beside me struggling to breathe.  He looked at me, then looked at my arm and his eyes went wide and tears started welling up in his eyes. I didn’t understand why he was so freaked out about my arm, from what I know my arm was perfectly fine so I didn’t pay much attention to it. Then I realized my stepfather was nowhere to be found. I screamed for him

“Claudio!”

All of a sudden I see him running up to me crying and panicking. I still don’t understand what’s going on, so I ask,“What happened?!?” “Is everything okay with me?”  “I can’t feel my arm!”

He tells me not to worry that my arm was perfectly fine, I knew he was lying but I let it go. They took my brother in one ambulance first, then they took me. The ambulance ride was kind of a blur. I was losing a lot of blood by the minute and I could feel myself losing consciousness. I told the EMT I was tired and I wanted to sleep. He had a worried look on his face and told me I had to try my best to stay awake and to keep fighting. I looked at my stepfather who was freaking out talking to my mother on the phone. I could hear her screaming and crying on the phone asking my stepfather how he could be so stupid and let this happen to us. Deep down I knew that she knew it wasn’t his fault. By the time we got to the Children's Trauma Center I had already lost a tremendous amount of blood, I then realized that my arms was torn open from all of the glass from  the window of the car.   I know I should’ve been panicking,  but somehow I was strangely calm  .The doctors were trying their hardest to take out the glass from my arm but it was impossible. Unfortunately they couldn’t repair all the damages to my arm and all they could do was put stitches. I have a little bit of nerve damage and I have permanent scars from the glass. November 11th 2009 my life completely changed. I learned how precious life truly is and to never take one single day for granted. You never know when it’s your last day here on Earth.