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I awoke to the sounds of earth-shattering screaming in the foreground and the background music was uncontrollable sobbing.

"... late for soccer ...gotta tell Angie to let coach know", I thought.

Lights were flashing and I slowly realized that I was laying on the side of a road. Everything look familiar, I knew where I was but not why I was there. Recent memory slowly slipped into my consciousness and then my thoughts were violently ripped from my head when when I saw a young woman screaming while being restrained by cops. She was clearly trying to get to a car that was enveloped in flames.

"... my babies .. my kids .. help me"

I saw my car. My car was flipped. "Annie, where is Annie, my sister?"

The next thing I remember is a hospital room. My Aunt Jill was in the room. "Where are my parents? Where is Annie? Where am I?"

And then came the most horrifying moments of my life. The life that I will never know again. I had been driving to soccer practice with my sister. She was driving shotgun. We were rushing to get to the field on time. A text message came in on my phone. I glanced down to see who it was and the next thing I knew, I was here with my sobbing Aunt.

My parents were at the morgue and Aunt Jill was telling me that my sister was dead and so were two other children that were passengers in the car that I drove in to. My sister was 15. The children that died were 2 years old and 5 years old. The driver of the other car, a Mother, had survived and one of her children (aged 7) was in critical condition.

The excruciating pain that enveloped me is indescribable. It is a pain that I feel will eventually send my mind to the brink of insanity - because it will never leave. The pain remains as a core of my being, four years later.

I was a good kid. I volunteered every Christmas at a local soup kitchen. I got mostly A's in school. I was a coordinated athlete. I was a good driver. This could not have happened to me, but it did.

Everything I had read and learned in driver's training and from the adults around me was about how "I could kill myself". "You could kill yourself speeding", they said. "Car crashes are the No. 1 killer of teens", they added. No one told me that I could LIVE through a car crash, cause a death or multiple deaths, and have to face living with myself for the rest of my life.

I am tormented by guilt and remorse - the kind that is gut-retching.

I am writing this to help other teenagers and in memory of my sister and the two children that will never have a life. I think of Annie and these kids every day. If my story can make one teenager out there pay attention to the road, I will feel that I have partly redeemed myself. Lock your cell phone in your book bag, in the trunk of your car. Turn the radio down and don't
speed.

Here are facts to remember:

• Speeding is a factor in 35% of crash deaths involving young drivers.
• Cell phone use increases the crash risk by 300%.
• Adding one passenger increases the fatal crash risk by 48%.
• A second passenger increases the fatality risk by 158%.
• 87% of teen deaths involve distracted drivers; radios rank as a top teen distraction.
• Eating at the wheel causes 2% of teen crashes.
• Nearly half of teens are sleep-deprived, and young drivers cause 55% of fatigue-related crashes.
• Teens are three times more likely to die in a crash at night.

Please God, give me the strength to eventually forgive myself
and move on with my life. God, you are the only one that knows the depth
of my suffering - based only on a bad decision at the age of 17.

This story was donated by an Anonymous friend of The Michigan Business Directory.

Labels: car accident, teen driving