Listen.
Grandma Rose just called me to tell me that on her way home from work, she found a car crashed across the street from their house. She went to the vehicle to find one person inside, dead. About three feet away from the car was another person, unconscious, gasping for air. Both of them were young, about age 18.
There have been so, so many deaths and injuries of young kids in cars that have directly affected my life, let me share some stories.
Number 1
When I was in 7th grade, Grandpa Jim came across a car accident on Lewiston Rd. Some young kids had been racing. The kids decided to take up both sides of the road. In the on coming lane, a family drove. A 12-13 year old girl who was in my grade at school, her mother, her brother and her brothers friend.
When the cars hit, Sabrina Roy, the classmate of mine, flew through the front window. Her mother who had been driving was hit by the oncoming car in a manor that **literally** removed part of her skull, exposing her brain.
The two boys in the backseat got out of the car after the accident and found Sabrina’s dead body and carried her back to the car, where they laid her across the back seat.
As Grandpa Jim walked up to the car, he found Sabrina’s mother, sitting against the front tire of the car. Half of her brain exposed, she was crying for her daughter. On the way to the hospital, she passed away.
Number 2
I think I was in 7th grade when this happened as well. It was winter, and a short while after we had gotten to school, word began to spread about an accident that had happened that morning.
Two young guys were riding into school, when they slipped on some black ice, on a curve that is actually right near your house on Fox Rd. In their defense, it is hard when you first learn to drive, to understand the conditions of ice. When the car slipped, it slid into the oncoming lane of traffic, where a snowplow was working to clear the snow that had fallen that night. The plow it the boys, killing them both. I remember that day. I did not know these boys, they were older than me, but I remember finally understanding, that we are not immortal. We don’t just grow old and die when our bodies can’t sustain us any longer. It can be a simple ride into school, a daily, mundane, tedious ride to work, one small error and everything is over.
Number 3
Dianna Manges, Candace Hilchey, Bill Kanarski were all people I had known for a long time. Dianna and Bill were in 11th grade with me, while Candace, though in 10th grade, was an extremely close friend of mine.
Getting a little risky (Dianna liked to be this way, I remember) Dianna ‘borrowed’ her parents car without permission. She picked up Bill and Candace, just to have some fun. I don’t remember exactly where they were headed, I think they were just, driving around, talking.
They were on the road that the church your Mom and Dad were married in is on. There is a very small creek on that road, that goes under the road. It is just enough to require a steel rail on each side of the street. When Diana looked down to change the radio station, that is what she hit, that little rail. The car hit the railing in a way that caused it to act like a ramp. The car lunged into the air and landed straight down, onto it’s nose.
I am glad to report that all three of them walked out of that accident with only cuts and bruises However, to this day, if you meet Candace, she will be glad to show you the huge scar that lives under her chin from this accident.
Number 4
Again, kids racing. During my Sr year, Tony Rosone and Cory Gardner ended up in a race that nearly killed Ronda Kern. I can’t remember who else was in these cars at that time, but I do remember being at the accident site and seeing the fence post that impaled the windshield and kocked Ronda unconscious. This accident happend on Albion Road.
OK I could go on with stories far past here. HERE IS THE POINT:
Ava. Alahna. Aliah. So help me. If you drive like an asshole and kill yourself, I will spend the rest of my life, so sick to my stomach, I may actually die from endless vomiting. The thought of this happening to one of your beautiful, powerful lives is enough to paralyze me. If it actually happend, I can only imagine my entire remaining life would be a physical and mental hell.
And I am not even your mother or father. If *I*, your Aunt, can feel that destroyed by the thought of your death, please consider that your parents would likely feel a thousand times the hell.
Grandpa Jim spent a few years as a volunteer fireman. He has been to many car accident scenes
