Flying Free

The Accident

Dad's eyes were slowly opening and closing, I wouldn't blame him it's been two hours now. Three hours to go. Yay... I thought to my self sarcastically. "Dad I think it's mums turn to drive". He pulled over, he got out and walked to the other side while mum shuffled over to the drivers seat.

Two and a half hours had passed now and It was lunch time. We stopped at a service station in Dunkeld, a town a half hour from Kings Town. It was right next to the Grampians - they were so big! Mum got back in the car, she handed me a chicken sandwich and an ice cream.

"Mum you look a little tired"

"Only 30 minutes to go, I'll be fine"

I wasn't so sure about that, the bags under her eyes looked like she had a caterpillar hanging from them. Dad and I fell asleep once we started traveling again. Ironically I fell asleep counting sheep.

I woke up, the car was bumping on the other side of the road. We'd already ran over two reflector post. Mum and I screamed in sync and our screams woke dad up instantly. A car was heading our way. Mum had frozen with shock, she wasn't doing anything! Everything that was happening went into slow motion, Mum glanced at me, scared, with tears in her eyes. Don't stare at me, dodge the oncoming car woman! My vision was normal again; it felt really fast. Dad grabbed the steering wheel and moved us back to the left side of the road, unfortunately the oncoming car had the same intention to avoid us. I let out a deafening scream that was silenced by the jult of the cars colliding, as I was thrown in to the back of dads chair. Everything went black.

There was a loud ringing in my ear. Was I deaf?, was I blind? Thankfully not, my vision was blurry but it eventually cleared up. All I saw was mum unconscious at the steering wheel. There were drops of blood staining through her blonde hair. Tears started to build up in my eyes and I sobbed heavily. I shook her lightly, "Mum..... Mum? Mum!"

A hand grabbed my shoulder

"We have to go now!"

"Not without mum!"

"I'll get your mother, go now!"

I tucked my legs to my chest on the damp, green grass. Dad carried mum over and gently laid her on the ground. She was still unconscious. I wish mum would open her eyes to hear me, see me, feel me hugging her. Dad walked towards us through the smoke, carrying all our bags, he reached in to won of them and grabbed out a few rugs - it was getting close to dusk, just then the ambulance pulled up with police and fire trucks following behind. We were immediately assisted by the ambulance, mum was put on a wheely bed and had an oxygen mask put on. Dad and I sat on a flip down seat, he wrapped his arms around me and whispered to me "Everything is going to be ok". Unconvincingly of course, if he hadn't of brought us here in the first place none of this would have happened! The ambulance raced off with it's siren on.

I had a 10cm cut on my fore head, from the shattered glass of the side window and I felt like my whole body was bruised from head to toe.one of the nurses checked my blood pressure and filled in an accident report; she asked my name, my parents names anything to help me feel comfortable. "What's your birthday?

"29th of September 2000" I replied stuttering. Next a doctor attended to my wounds, he rubbed some ointment on my cuts and it stung horribly.