Tragedy Strikes My Town

2/24/2012 accident , horrible , tragedy 0 Comments

On Monday, we had our first real snowstorm this winter. It wasn’t too much snow, but enough to have to shovel and make the roads slick with ice.

We’ve been very lucky this winter because usually it starts dumping snow on us in October, and we can’t see the ground for six months, just piles of snow, higher than you can reach. Not to mention, the temperature being 40 below for days at a time, if not weeks.

So, yeah, this winter has rocked. It’s been the best winter of my entire life.

On Monday, my town was hit with a tragedy, and we’re all still reeling from it.

Two teenage girls from our town were in a horrible car accident, due to the icy roads. The 16-year-old, who was driving, died at the scene. The 17-year-old girl is in critical care with a severe head injury.

How I found out about it was Kevin had called me from his work and told me a cop had stopped by and asked for Kevin’s female coworker. It turns out; the 17-year-old girl was her daughter.

Yeah. I know.

Imagine the fear and heartache she must have felt when the cop relayed the news to her. . .

And then you have the 16-year-old who died.

Her parents were in Florida when this happened.

God, can you imagine being on vacation, and getting a phone call that your 16-year-old kid died? That has to be one of the worst things in the world to happen to a person–losing a child. And this poor couple not only had to deal with the loss of their child, but also had to deal with the chaos and stress of getting back home.

I had a small taste of that last April when my mom died, and I had to get two plane tickets right away. The whole experience sucked. Now imagine going through that experience while trying to compose your grief-stricken self enough to where you don’t shatter into tiny pieces all over the airport, and on the plane, continuously bawling your eyes out.

*deep breath*

It’s just too heartbreaking to even go there in your mind, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the 17-year-old girl is alive, and it doesn’t appear like she has any brain damage. She is in a coma, and her brain is bruised and swollen. From what I understand, the doctor(s) put a tube in her skull to drain the fluid out, in an attempt to relieve the pressure. That’s all I know so far.

I just hope she pulls through this, and will be able to deal with the aftermath of it all. Because if you think about it, she doesn’t even know her friend is dead.

How’s that going to affect her?

Nobody knows what those two were doing before the car had spun out of control and crashed into an SUV.

What if the girls were just being silly teenagers, goofing off, right before it happened? Will this girl, who survived, feel guilty and blame herself for the accident?

We just don’t know, but I hope she doesn’t. I hope she gets through it all. And if I’m in a position to help her, since Kevin works with her mom, I’ll do it.

Sorry for the somber post, but if you have any teenagers in your life, please remind them to be careful when they drive. I don’t want anybody to have to go through this. In fact, you be careful out there too.

Have a safe and fun weekend.