Invincible At the age of ten, most boys either scrape their knees playing kickball or break their wrists playing football. I had it a little worse than most, I died, twice. I can remember that terrible day, when I was riding my bike down my street, and I was having a grand time going up people’s driveways and speeding back down. It was a warm summer’s day around noontime, and I was on my way home for lunch. I was alone, and I was no more than a mile from my house. I went up this very steep driveway and began to turn around to get that omnipresent rush of going so fast down a hill that I felt like I was flying.
I opened my eyes to see a car pulling up the driveway just ahead of me. I jammed on my handlebar brakes, but it was too late, and before I could do anything, I was actually flying through the air. I landed on my head, and to this day I don’t remember what happened after my collision with that very inhospitable surface known as the road. I awoke to several nurses rushing around me and a doctor asking me what day it was. It was a few days later, and I had the worst headache and an upset stomach. It turned out that I had given myself a severe concussion, and I was in a comatose state for several hours and had to be revived from death twice.
I was now paying for my adolescent stupidity as I threw up for what seemed like hours. I was vomiting profusely like this because of the beating my brain took from its impact with the road. A few days after the accident, I was reunited with what used to be my shiny, new, midnight blue Huffy BMX bike. The front tire was flat, and the rim was bent up beyond repair. My seat was bent back and would probably take a machine to fix.
The Essay on Golf Cart Fun Driveway Road Cop
There I was on a Saturday night at a big party. It took place in a large house on the hills with people everywhere, inside and out. A few of my friends and I were outside when, out of the dark, a golf cart came skidding down the new brick driveway. The guy throwing the party caught eye of the cart and began freaking out, not only because there was a stolen golf cart in his driveway, but there was ...
In essence, my new bike was “totaled.” When I was feeling a little better, I learned that an elderly man was the first one to my side as he drove by my accident, and he had called the ambulance. He wasn’t even the person who had been turning up the driveway and had hit me. That person had taken off, and to my knowledge, was probably just turning around at the wrong place at the wrong time. I recall seeing a blue BMW before impact, but after I went over the roof of the car, I don’t know what happened to it.
The doctor told me that the old man who had called for the ambulance was returning from work and stopped when he saw me. I never found out who the person in the BMW was. I never did get the chance to thank the old man for saving my life. It was later I learned he was in the same hospital with brain cancer. He lived down the street from me, but I had never gotten to know him. He had come to my aid as a complete stranger.
He died a few days later, and I went to his funeral to get some closure for the many questions I had. Why was this ordinary man’s life taken away from him, but the dumb kid down the street was given a second chance? It didn’t make sense. Through both my experience and the elderly man’s death, I realized that I am not invincible and I have to take a step back sometimes to make sure I stay in control of my life whenever possible. I learned a lot from that man even though I never met him.
His compassion and selflessness saved a stranger’s life that day, and I hope to pay it forward someday if the occasion arises. I realized that I was very lucky because I could have died, but I was also lucky that we have all these new medical technologies that we take for granted everyday. I know in my heart that I had someone watching out for me both here on earth and in the heavens above. I became more in control of my actions from that day on.
