"Time I almost died"

On a sunny afternoon in May of 2013 I learned a very important lesson. I was at a family auction in the small quiet town of Ames, Oklahoma. The dew was still wet on the ground and the air was crisp. There was a lot of my extended family there as well as people I had never met. I got to see my cousin Taylor as well as one of her cousins named Jadey. We decided we were going to go ride four wheelers out in the field and it was at that time I learned a valuable lesson. Four wheeler accidents happen often, but I never expected to be the one involved. Before my accident I thought four wheelers were fairly safe, but afterwards I learned that an accident can happen in a split second and you should never assume you won’t be the one involved.

I had been cringing about day for so long. I was completely terrified to go into that room. As the door opened I was exposed to a cold draft and I could feel the dense air. The day I was told this needed to be done was horrifying, and now it’s actually happening. They rolled me over to a new bed and I looked around seeing doctors everywhere. There was a table that they rolled next to me and on it was things that I can’t even explain. They put a green mask on me with tubes going through both sides of it. They told me I’d get drowsy and all of the sudden I closed my eyes and it was happening. I was getting knee surgery.

I fought the thoughts of not being able to breathe and allowing myself to have a panic attack. I have never been very religious, but it got to a point where counting didn’t help and the moment that destroyed my health replayed over and over. It was the few seconds prior to blacking out, to when I looked up at my rearview mirror and saw a truck coming right for me because he fell asleep. These thirty minutes of darkness symbolized the endless emotional and physical pain I had endured and my return to the darkness, which I cannot explain. So I prayed, hoping that even though I couldn’t remember all the verses, it would end the spinning and the torture. These moments of fear were more than claustrophobia; it was also a concoction of sadness. Sadness, that uncovered my weak and fragile human being self to the world because I had still not healed. As these thoughts deepened, the bed of the MRI machine began to move outward and I knew it was over. I hadn’t realized that my body was trembling until they took the thick white sheet off me. It revealed my shaking legs covered in Goosebumps and so, I pulled my fuzzy green socks up and with their help got off the bed. I wondered if that’s what it was like to live through a traumatic event or was it me being dramatic? Either way, I shut the door leaving the loud and terrible noises behind me. As I walked out, I could never see myself laying in that room again, unable to escape the endless

One night after writing a history paper, I was so tired I went to bed without eating. Around two in the morning I woke up scared for my life. My clothes were soaked with sweat, my head was spinning, my whole body was shaking, and I knew my blood sugar was horribly low. Getting out of bed, I went to my fridge to get something to eat. The next thing I know, I wake up in a hospital bed with both of my parents looking at me. I had been informed that I slipped into a coma for a day and I was lucky to be alive. My heart had also stopped beating when they found me. My only thoughts were that I had missed a day of classes.

In Emergency Medical Technician school, you learn that when a patient is in critical condition they will feel an impending sense of doom before there body goes into complete shock. After this drastic change in behavior I sensed that his condition was about to get much worse. As he began to scream his evergreen eyes found mine. Our eyes were locked, and that’s when I watched them disappear like a sunset into the back of his head. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it was my eyes that were the last thing he saw on Earth. Then he seized. All I remember thinking was that I had to get out of the

My heart was throbbing, heavily and I could feel my body shutting down, my vision was getting hazy. And then suddenly I heard the sirens of the ambulance and two paramedics got down to our rescue as I fell unconscious.

I woke with a start. My eyes sprung open, but I could not see anything. It was pitch black. My eyes began to adjust and I heard very loud, unfamiliar voices. They were yelling at my parents. I don’t know exactly what they were saying, but we were in trouble. My mother started to cry, and there was

Then…. CRASH. I felt a jolt of movement so strong I must've blacked out because. When I awoke, I saw trees, flowers, people scattered, parts of the plane in flames. I was looking but then my right eye got blurry and I thought I was going blind. I went to go touch it and all I felt was a warm liquid. I looked back at my fingers and not a spot of my skin was showing through. I took my shirt and wiped it off with the sleeve. Then I saw the flight attendant who put my oxygen mask on. She seemed as if she were helping people.Than she ran to me.” Are you okay?” she asked as she touched my face. I felt a sting go through the right side of my head.” Sorry, You have a huge gash on your

After this, my dad knew I wouldn’t stop, he knew what this meant. He took me to a doctor right away. the car ride was one painful ride but we made it. We go to a doctor and he puts me to sleep. Everything goes black. I couldn’t open my eyes. Night past and day came. When I woke, I noticed something. Something

My mom at first thought that we had hit a large dog, but I knew from the smell; uncooked venison has a wild gamey smell to it that I have smelled many times before, and we argued over this until we heard a sound that was almost as loud as a gun shot and my mom said, “ I guess we will have to take your uncle Alvin up on his offer to use his pickup.” We still had to get to Scott City so that I could go to school and she could go to work, but my mom hates to change tires, and she would not let me change the tire, so I walked across the highway to see what road we were on to make sure my dad could find us. After the tire was fixed we headed into school, and I went through the motions getting more anxious as the day wore on. We left Healy around six thirty after my dad ended his shift; this meant we did not arrive in Wichita until late, although I still had to be up at six o'clock in the morning to be at the Canterbury Surgery Center by eight o'clock. The last things I remember before I went under were, asking why I didn't get to wear the cute dinosaur gown like one of the little kids got to wear, and thinking the heart monitor on my finger was a fish;

Confused, shocked and fear filled my mind as I lye on my side, gasping for air, trying desperately to stagger onto my knees. A sharp pain suddenly ran up my spine into my forehead and quickly I collapsed back onto the cold damp floor inside this mangled metal coffin in which I was trapped in. Bit by bit I moved my hand closer to my forehead, trying to impede this massive throbbing that was affecting my head. I skimmed my forehead and paused my hand on a huge gash. The pain shot into my head again, but I was able to clutch on to the seat and hold my balance. There was blood pouring down the side

I looked down to see needles in my arm, wires in my nose, and a giant machine hooked up through a catheter in my leg. Irritating beeping began to ring in my ears. My parents were nowhere to be found. I was alone in my dark and noisy hospital room. At least until a team of doctors walked in. They shut off the beeping and told me that my heart had stopped in the previous doctor’s office so an ambulance brought me here. I had been in a coma for 3 days. I sat up in confusion as they explained my condition. They explained that both of my kidneys had failed and I was now hooked up to a dialysis machine that was taking out my blood, cleaning it, and putting it back in. I felt so overwhelmed, that I felt was going to cry. But then the smile of a certain red and black jester popped into my head and I realized that I had to stay strong. 2 months later I was learning about the pills I must take every day, the diet I must abide by, and all the ways to take care of my body while I waited for a transplant. Not only that, but the doctors always had to run tests on me. Hours of CT-Scans, Kidney Scans, Biopsies, Ultrasounds, X-Rays and much more. Some were painless but most of them weren't. But of course, Harley's smile is what kept me strong. After 2 more weeks, I was finally able to go home after being in the hospital for a total of 3

As I slowly opened my eyes and drew in a breath, I started to realize where I was, I didn’t quite remember how I got there but I know that somehow I ended up in a hospital. There was a nurse in there who suddenly let out a gasp. Odd I thought, she quickly rushed out of the room and in what felt like an hour but really was a minute, came back with my parents and a doctor. My mom was sobbing and ran over to embrace me in a huge hug. After giving my mom and I a minute, the doctor walked over to me and started to explain what happened.

When I came to, I was not connected to as many machines. I tried to get up, but my arms weren’t there to support me; they were gone. After the doctors realized I woke up, they said “Lydia you were in a terrible car accident. We tried to save your parents, but they didn’t make it...”. Everything they were saying started to become fuzzy. My emotions got the better of me and I wanted to run away, but I was too weak to do so.

It’s cool and dark outside of the car as we drive, dark clouds hovering over the plains as fat, heavy drops of water fall from the full clouds. The lights of cars and streetlights and cars blur with the flow of water on the side windows, our speed not fast enough to force the drops to flow back along the windows. It’s not until we start on the highway and the water starts to move that I find my objects of interest in front of me in the form of the rain and the memories of my childhood that surface with them.