It happened so quickly, and I never saw it coming. I saw nothing but headlights coming out of the darkness right at me. A massive impact, screeching tires and twisting metal, and then complete silence in the dark. The only noise I could hear was someone screaming Oh my God over and over… until I realized it was me.
It took forty-five minutes for the paramedics to arrive. The head-on collision with a wrong way drunk driver occurred at the midway point between Phoenix and Payson. Thank God I wasn’t wedged in the car with a broken leg or worse. I doubt I would have made it if I was any less fortunate than I was. I walked away from this crash with barely a scratch physically. However, the emotional scars of this were a different story.
Later that morning as I sat in my dad’s truck on the ride home, I stared at the floor with one question running through my head over and over: “Since I have been granted more time on this Earth, what should I be doing with it?” That answer was an easy one to come to, I should be pursuing the one thing that I have been interested in all of my life but have never chased, and that was Public Speaking. Oddly enough, I wasn’t sure I had a “good enough” story to tell about me, but this crash changed all of that. At least in my head it did. This is a story a lot of people can relate to, but what I want to ensure is that I use this as a way to encourage others to realize that life is short, and can be radically changed or even end in the blink of an eye. With this in mind, we all need to start chasing the dreams and goals we have. You need to maximize whatever time you have, and treat each day like the gift that it is. I am here to help show you the way.
