“The hardest thing you have ever had to do” The worst experience in my life that was personally difficult for me to deal with was a little more brutal and gory than other people’s experiences. I have a feeling that I will never, ever forget the things I saw this day or the things I was feeling. This is something that I still struggle with today because I still have nightmares reliving this day, and seeing everything I saw over and over again. In April this year, I was on my way to Frankfort, Kentucky for my last compete soccer game.
We had to leave my house at about five o’clock in the morning so that we could make it to the game in time. My mother and my father were in the front seat of our ford expedition and I was in the back behind the passenger seat. We were about an hour down the road on bluegrass parkway. It was strange to see no one on the road, but I guess that was just because it was early. I remember there being fog over the road, but not enough that you couldn’t see where you were driving. I was listening to my iPod almost falling asleep but just staring out the front of the car through the windshield.
My dad was driving in the fast lane, just because the fog wasn’t as bad toward the center of the median. I remember him swerving sharply because what he thought was a deer lying in the middle of the lane. As soon as he got control of the car he slammed on the breaks, bringing the car to a stop in the middle of the road. We weren’t worried about other cars hitting us because no one else was on the road, and we hadn’t seen anyone on the road in an hour. As we sat there trying to catch our breath, the fog started to settle around our car. That’s when we saw what wasn’t a deer in the road.
The figure that was lying in the middle of the fast lane was a body. My dad pulled to the side of the road, and that’s when we noticed what had happened. We got out of the car and ran to the middle of the road; of course my dad didn’t want me to get out and go see everything that happened so he told me to wait on the side of the road. About three minutes passed by before I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and I just ran over to the median. I saw more than one body lying in the road. My mom and dad were both just sitting on the ground next to one of the many mangled bodies.
My mom was holding the hand of a guy with a broken arm and a broken leg. My dad was trying to move one of the bodies out of the middle of the road, and he told me to just go hold a hand of someone, and pray by them. As I was walking to a body to hold his hand, I realized what had happened. There was a van- much like one that the school would take on trips to sport games; just a regular white eight person van. It was crushed on all sides, with all the windows broken out, and the sides beaten in. It was noticeable that the van had flipped more than once going down the bluegrass parkway, and everyone from inside had been ejected.
There were nine bodies that were lying on the road and in the median. All of these bodies were men in their late twenties, and of Asian descent. All had broken bones, blood, and mangled bodies. As time went on there were people who stopped and also went to each of these men and held their hands. These men had just gotten back from a fishing trip because there were fishing poles and fish lying all over the road and the smell of fish in the air. It was noticeable that a few of the men were going to die waiting for the ambulances and police cars to come.
The man that I was lying by had a crushed skull because he had been ejected on the cement road and he hit his head, he also has a very broken arm. The blood from his skull was running down his forehead into his eyes and I kept using my shirt to wipe it away. He tried to lift his arm and it was just dangled. I sat there by this man and he did nothing by hold my hand back. I prayed by this man for almost an hour. He couldn’t speak any English but he did say thank you many times as best as he could. I prayed to god that this group of guys would make it through this awful accident and that everyone and their families remanded safe.
I also prayed to god to protect these men on their journeys back to their homes. I prayed that they would have safe surgeries to fix their mangled bodies and prayed to god that I hope that every man in the car knew him and believed in him. When I said amen, I knew this man couldn’t understand a word I said because he just looked at me blankly and then he pulled my hand close to his mouth and he kissed my fingers. I watched as the life of this man left his body. I felt the grip of his hand lose tightness and I watched as his body went limp. Five men died before the ambulances and police cars arrived.
I know that I couldn’t do anything to save this man’s life, but I was there with him during his last minutes on earth. I will never forget the way this scene played out, and all the faces of these men I had this man’s blood stained on my hand, my shirt, and I had his face stained in my memory. I will never forget this man, and I will never forget this day in my life. God put me through this because I think he wanted me to become stronger. I took every day of my life for granted, and now that I look back I realize that was a mistake. I wouldn’t change a thing anything that I did about this situation.
If I had control I would have allowed all of these passengers to survive. After this day I prayed to god every day to allow these men’s faces to disappear from my memory. I was terrified and I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing someone who reminded me of the man’s hand I was holding. I prayed to god that if that man was in pain that he just take him to heaven, and that’s what he did. I don’t think that god would have allowed these men to go to hell. I am a very strong girl, and I have dealt with things other people have not, and probably never in their lives will.
