by Michael Allen McCormick

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: July 12, 2010

In the blink of an eye, your entire life can change. This is the way of catastrophic events. One day, you are happy go lucky, without a care of fear in the world. The next day you are laying in a hospital bed fighting for your life.

Charlene woke from her sleep in horrible fright. Relieved to finally be awake, such a terrible dream. In her sleep there was tumbling, breaking glass, and terrible pain in her right hand and her rib cage. Slowly, the fog of sleep cleared from her head.

A dreadful feeling came over her as she remembered that violent slumber she just woke from. It was all so real. She was so glad the crashing and bashing was over. She could almost relive and feel the entire episode as if it were real. As if a phantom hangover from her sleep, there was still pain in her right hand (like the pain of a toothache, nagging at her consciousness). When she sat up a little and tried to clear her throat with a cough, a stinging ache in her ribcage.

Opening her eyes, Charlene looked around this strange place. Nothing looked familiar, this wasn't her bedroom. Oh my God, is this a hospital? She raised her hand to wipe the sleep from her eyes and there was an IV plugged into her arm. A blood pressure cuff tightened up around her calf and made a noise. She let out a small whimper.

It wasn't a dream at all. The horror of the accident began to set in as she laid back and began to remember the details that led up to the frightening roll over. She could remember her sweet little Chihuahua dog Auggie accidentally dumping his water dish. In the distraction of Charlene cleaning the spill, her Grandson Alex (a brand new driver on his learners permit) took his eyes of the road for a split second.

The 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan veered slightly from the road and began to lose traction in the gravel of the narrow shoulder. Startled, Alex over corrected back onto the highway. The vehicle re-entered the road sideways with the cruise control still locked in at 62 miles per hour.

How many times did they roll? Charlene remembers a bystander saying they went over eight times. She never saw the airbag blow, yet it stuck her earring into the rooftop of the car without tearing off her ear.

As she lay there in the hospital bed, the dread began to set in. She remembered the bloody mess of her right arm, flesh torn off and fingers dangling, blood dripping, tendons exposed. So much blood.

She remembered calling for her little Augie, expecting him to come bounding up and jump on the

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>