The accident

I awoke at 5:30 AM and my parents were almost finished loading our white 1990's van with the blue dolphin stickers on the side. I strapped on my bra and pulled on my Doc Marten look-alike sandals. Brushed my hair and examined myself in my long mirror. I frowned at my small chest. How did all the other girls my age have way bigger boobs than me? I grabbed a blanket and pillows and walked out to the van. I watched my dad gently lift and carry out Caleb who was snuggly dressed in an overstuffed baby coat.

I hopped in through the van's side door and decided I wanted to sit next to a window so I could sleep. I made my way to the back corner seat. Kirsten's seat. Kirsten often reminded us it was her seat and no one else could sit there. To this day I don't know why Kirsten didn't fight me for her seat. If there was one person I fought with more than my mom, it was my sister, Kirsten.

I usually sat next to Caleb in the middle bench and Kirsten sat in the back corner, but maybe she was too sleepy to protest. Kirsten climbed in next to me, followed by Clint who sat next to her. Andre was the last kid in, and he sat next to Caleb on the middle bench. Mom and dad were still outside scurrying around picking up last minute items. My dad slid shut the side door and climbed into the passenger seat and my mom climbed into the driver's seat. The car doors slammed and the engine ignited. I looked at the green neon analog clock on the front dashboard. 6:01 AM. We were leaving on time. A miracle.

"Dad, did you bring the cd's?" Kirsten asked. "Yep, they're up here with Alyse's boombox. We'll turn it on once we reach the freeway."

"I want some juice!" said Andre. My dad unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted behind him to pull a juice bottle out from the cooler. "Maybe I can weach it," Andre offered and he unbuckled his seatbelt to pull out the juice. My dad returned to his seat and re-buckled.

"Andre's not wearing his seatbelt!" Clint tattled.

Dad turned around, "Andre, buckle up." Andre grudgingly obeyed.

"Nu uh!" Kirsten yelled. Kirsten and I were at in again. Arguing about something meaningless. Kirsten had a way of pushing my buttons and I would always stubbornly retaliate. "You guys, Kirsten and Alyse!” my mom groaned, “Please stop fighting. Are you capable of that?"

It had only been about 3 minutes since we pulled out of the driveway. This was going to be a long trip. I leaned my head against my pillow next to the window and closed my eyes. The car fell silent except for my parents in the front seat quietly discussing the best route to the freeway.

"But I can go this way, right? It will take me there?" My mom asked.

"I think so, but I always go the other way. We can try it, though," Dad replied

We had been driving only a few minutes when my mom turned down a dark country road in the middle of a wide field. The van pulled to a stop. The pause was quiet, but it felt queer. And suddenly my mom gunned the engine and the car jerked forward.

And then she screamed.

My blood drained, my stomach pitted, and my gut wrenched in a sickening craze as my mother's shriek ripped through my ear drums, rattling my brain. But the scream was instantly silenced.

A crashing bang exploded against the van and threw my body against my sister and then wrenched me back into a shattering window. Ripping metal, crashing glass, screeching brakes rang through my skull as my pillow was sucked out the window. I dug my fingernails into the cushion of the middle bench as it crushed into my legs while my body flung right and left in surges of psychotic centripical force.

And the screaming. Hundreds of thousands of screams shrieked through the twisting metal and breaking glass.

With a final crashing blow my body slammed against the seat in front of me knocking the air from my chest and then violently whipped me back against the back of my bench. And then nothing.

A deafening silence pounded against my temples.

But it wasn’t silent. I could still hear something. It was soft at first as if it were being pulled out of dream. But it got louder. And louder.

Screams.

Screaming. And shrieking. It hadn’t stopped. And it wouldn’t stop. The screaming wouldn’t stop.

“Alyse”

I could barely hear someone calling my name. It sounded as if they were calling from somewhere in the distance, but suddenly it got louder. And then I realized it was Kirsten sitting right next to me.

“Alyse!”

“Alyse! Stop screaming!”

Kirsten’s tart and merciless words cut through the noise.

“Stop screaming!”

I swallowed hard and clenched my teeth until the shrieks retreated back into my throat. My chest heaved in disjointed rhythm.

And then I felt the burning.

My right leg was burning. Shocks of heat raced up and down my calf. My knee was pinned against the seat in front of me. I looked down and saw my thigh. My eyes widened in fear. It didn’t looked like a thigh. It was twisted and contorted and shaped like an “S”.

I stared at my leg and then slowly attempted to lift it. And I did lift it. Or at least part of it. I was able to slightly lift up the top half of my broken femur while the bottom half laid lifeless on my seat, pinned against the chair in front of me. My stomach turned in sickening terror and I let my bone fall back to the seat.

Andre, the 5-yr-old, screamed in front of me and Kirsten. I looked up.

“My legs! My legs! Help! My legs!”

The driver’s side, my mom’s side, had been smashed in causing a deep concave into the belly of the van. Her seat was mashed right into the middle. Right on top of Andre’s legs.

“It’s okay Andre! It’s okay!” I yelled.

I looked at the driver’s seat and saw my mom. Her head hung by her neck and rested limp against the back of the seat.

“Mom!” But I didn’t expect a response. She must have been knocked out.

“Dad! Dad!” I looked over to the passenger side and I saw my dad moving. The movements were rigid, disjointed. He looked left and then right. Down, then up. His arms moved from side to side. The movements didn’t make sense. But I didn’t care. He was moving. He was okay.

“Dad! Dad!” He didn’t answer. He must be in a daze.

An accident. We were in an accident. I looked around to see what hit us. Another car, maybe another van?

I looked out the front window and saw gravel and dirt. Nothing in front. I looked out my window and only saw trees. Then I twisted around as my leg’s burning and pulsing intensified. I strained to look behind me and then I let out a soft defeated sigh. An 18-wheeler semi was crushed into the trees behind me. We were hit by a semi.

A man came running up to my window and looked in through the shattered glass. “Everyone okay in here?”

We looked at him without emotion and I mumbled something about my leg as Andre continued to scream.

“Help is coming. Can you hear that? Can you hear those sirens?”

I listened and heard soft sirens ringing in the distance.

“Those sirens are for you. They are coming for you. Hang in there.”

Within seconds a crowd of first responders were flocking around the van.

“This one’s got no pulse!” A man yelled as he took his hands off my mom’s neck.

A paramedic ran up to the car seat strapped in the seat right in front of me holding my baby brother, Caleb. The paramedic reached through the broken glass and placed their finger under Caleb’s nose to feel for a breath. “This one needs help!” They yelled and they stepped away.

Kirsten gasped, “Caleb!” She reached across me and placed her finger under his nose. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. But he wasn’t sleeping before we were hit. He had been awake. And now he had three small dots of blood on his forehead. Kirsten sighed with relief. “He’s breathing!” I reached in front of me and placed my finger under his nose and with relief I felt the soft warmth of his breath. He was okay. Just sleeping. He must have fallen asleep.

The paramedic came back and reached through the glass, unbuckled Caleb, and took him out through the side window.

Suddenly I heard screeching metal and the sliding door of the van jammed and then was forced open. “Can any of you walk out?” a police officer asked through the door. Kirsten stood up next to me and the officer reached out for her hand and guided her around the crushed seats out the sliding door.

As Kirsten made her way out she revealed Clint who had been sitting to her left. Something was wrong with Clint. He was twisting and writhing in his seat. He slid down the seat with foam and spit falling out his mouth. Paramedics reached in and tried to place a neck brace.

“Don’t touch my legs!” Andre screamed.

I looked up and saw paramedics checking Andre and assessing his injuries.

“It’s okay Andre! It’s okay!” I called out, not able to think of anything else to say.

I looked to the left and Clint was gone. The officers must have taken him.

“Sir!” I looked up and officers were surrounding my dad.

“Sir! SIR!” the officers yelled, trying to get my dad’s attention, but he wouldn’t respond.

“Dad!”I yelled out, “Dad!” Why wouldn’t he respond?

“What’s your name?” A paramedic came up to me.

I looked up. “Uh...Alyse.”

“Alyse, I’m going to place a neck brace around you, okay?”

“...Okay.” And the white stuffed brace was wrapped against my neck.

“How old are you?”

“14”

“How long have you had braces?”

“Uh...since I was...2 years, I think.” Why did they care about my braces? Another paramedic came through the back window to my side.

“What’s your name?”

“Alyse.”

“Are you in pain, Alyse?”

I felt the burning sensation up and down my calf. “My leg hurts” The paramedic looked down at my twisted thigh.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No”

But then I realized my left wrist was hurting. “My wrist.”

“Alyse, we’re going to get you out of here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But we have to rip parts of the van to get to you out, okay? We’re going to place a blanket over your head to protect you from glass and metal.”

“Okay.”

A warm blanket was placed on top of me and my body rested against the back of the seat. Suddenly the roar of an engine fire up. Sawing, screeching metal, ripping plastic, shattering glass filled my ears. My ears hurt.

“Stop that noise!” Andre yelled. “Stop that noise!”

My eyes began to droop in exhaustion, but then I jerked awake in excruciating pain when the chair in front of me shifted. My leg went from burning, to blood rushing, to sharp shocks of pain, back to burning.

But I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream. I was somewhere else. I was deep inside my mind and everything was happening on the surface. I leaned my head to the side of the van, closed my eyes, and listened to the violent roar of an engine.

And Andre screaming. He was screaming and begging for help.

“My leg hurts!” he cried.

“Okay, we’re going to help you.” The firefighters and paramedics were trying to comfort Andre. “What’s your name?”

“Andre-” And then he screamed out in pain as my mom’s chair, pinned against his legs, shifted. “Stop that noise!” He cried. “Stop it.”

It was pretty much the most heartbreaking thing to listen to, but I was too tired to call out to him. I was so tired.

“Don’t fall asleep.” A first responder poked his head under the blanket to check on me.

“I want to go to sleep”

“We need you to stay awake,” said a paramedic to the side of me. “How long have you had braces?”

The braces question again. Stop asking me about my braces.

“2 years.”

As Andre and I waited for the van to be ripped apart in order to free our crushed legs, Kirsten, Clint, and Caleb were loaded into an ambulance to be rushed to McKinney’s local hospital.

“How about you and your brother sit in the front bench with the driver,” a paramedic suggested to Kirsten. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

Kirsten looked around a caught a glance at the anxious medical staff loading Caleb into the back of the ambulance. She stepped into the front seat of the ambulance with Clint knowing that comfort was not the reason they were in the front seat. She could tell the adults around her worried Caleb might die on his way to the hospital.

“No, please, no!” Andre’s scream roared through the noise of the engine. “Stop that noise!”

And then it stopped.

The roaring engine stopped.

How long had it been? An hour? Longer? I couldn’t keep track. My leg was burning. I was so tired.

“Okay, we’ve got you.” an officer explained to Andre.

“We’ve got you.” “We’re going to help you.” A chorus of a half dozen adults around said trying to reassure and prepare Andre for what was to come.

“We’re going to lift this chair off of you so we can get you to the hospital.”

“No! Don’t take it off! Please, please!” Andre cried.

They lifted the blanket off of my head and I looked around. They had taken my mom and dad out of the car. Andre and I were the only ones left.

“No, no!” Andre cried.

“One! Two! Three!” Firefighters and officers lifted my mom’s chair off of Andre’s legs and he screamed in horror. “Please stop!”

The paramedics quickly secured Andre to a stretcher and carefully straightened laid out his legs. I watched them carry Andre out of my view. He left me. And then I was all by myself. The last one in the car. I stared blankly in front of me. Staring at the mangled, twisted metal heap that had been my family’s van. Now it was empty. And I was alone.

“Alyse?” I looked up at a paramedic.

“Your sister, your brother, and your baby brother were taken to the hospital” They explained. “We’ve got your dad and your brother in the helicopter.” They conveniently left out any information about my mom. But kids aren’t stupid.

A helicopter? When did a helicopter arrive? How did I not hear it?

The rest is kind of a blur. The roar of the helicopter. The growing pain in my leg and my severe discomfort. Emergency staff racing my stretcher down a hallway like I was in a movie. My clothes cut off from my body as I lay naked and exposed in a room of a dozen people assessing my injuries. Someone asking me the name of my church ward. A warm blanket being laid on top of me. People updating me on where everyone in my family had been taken. Everyone, that is, except for my mom.

And then a kind man came it and took x-rays of my body. It was probably the most painful experience of my life. Then I laid still as a conveyor pulled me through a big machine to take pictures of my brain and neck.

And then they said I was going to go to surgery. They showed me a teddy bear they said was from Heather’s family. A great aunt and uncle whom I didn’t know showed up and held my hand. And then it went dark.

When I awoke I was wheeled to a hospital bed next to Andre. It really is a blur. Family members and church members started visiting the room. Some of them with smiles in an attempt to comfort me, some of them with somber expressions not knowing what to say.

The day was long and there was lots of waiting. And I felt nothing. I wasn't sad, I wasn't happy. I just existed as I watched people move around me.

Finally in the evening a large group of my family members gathered around me in my hospital room. They showed somber faces and some of them had been crying. My Grandma Johnson stood in the middle of them.

"Alyse," she started. "Alyse. I have something to tell you."

I knew what was coming. My mom was dead. I knew she was dead.

"Your mom is dead. And your dad," she paused. "Your dad probably won't make it."

I stared at my Grandma. I thought my dad would live. He had been moving. He went into surgery the same time as me.

I closed my eyes and turned my head. I just wanted to go to sleep. I wanted to sleep and disappear.

***

So there it is. The horrible story in all it's epic sadness. And though this story marks the end of my parents' lives, it doesn't mark the end of their legacy.

After their death, there are stories of fire fighters, police officers, nurses, medical staff, and doctors who did everything in their power to save us and heal us. My aunts, uncles, and grandparents flew to our rescue and arranged for us to live with a kind uncle, aunt, and their 6 kids. Church members and neighbors brought us food, clothing, beds, and generously donated money. In the deep pit of sorrow we were lifted up, supported, and loved. The hours, days, weeks, and years of support we've received after our tragedy is extraordinary in the truest sense.

For all those who have loved me and my younger siblings, for all those who knew my parents and were touched by their lasting influence, Nancy and Keith and their legacy will live forever in all of us.

****

"You're Gonna Live Forever In Me" John Mayer: