“Get out of the car!” Mario was yelling to anyone who would listen.  After climbing out of a hole in the window created by my water bottle, I gathered my senses.

            “We flipped over,” I told myself.  “That is what must have happened.  How nice, we flipped over.  WAIT!  We flipped over… in the car…like in the movies… that can’t have happened.  Maybe it is just a dream.  I will wake up, and be in the car perfectly safe.  That must be it.”  Pinching my cheek, I finally believed it really happened.

            “What about everyone else?”  I started yelling out names, with answers from most.  Rick did not answer, but then I saw Mario and Ludwig pulling him out of the passenger window.  He did not look good.

            “What is wrong with him?” I picked my brain.

“Shock, treat for shock!” someone yelled.

“Of course!”  I ran to get stuff… anything that might be helpful… umm…a first aid kit…uhhh…a sleeping bag…some rope… a backpack!  Rick said that his neck really hurt, and he started getting chills and turning pale.  With the backpack elevating his legs, we placed the sleeping bags around him.

A crowd had sprung up from nowhere, and the police had arrived.  Ludwig talked to the police, and we kept working.  With two people attending to Rick, the rest of us started cleaning up other stuff.

“Are these your glasses?” someone asked me.

“So that’s why everything is so blurry.”  I stared down at my glasses with a bent frame.  After crudely bending it back into shape, I put them on and realized they helped little because they were so dirty, and were constantly being covered with the drizzle.  Just like in the movies, where the weather is always perfect to describe the scene, the slow rain and cool breeze of the 9:30 morning were perfect for our situation.

Once the ambulance arrived, four people went to the hospital, although only two had injuries.  The rest of us were ready to follow, but were told to stay by the police.  The wrecked car was towed, and we were at the police station for almost an hour. 

When we finally got the hospital, almost three hours after the accident, we were anxious to get inside.  We looked for a parking space; the closest one to the door; well, not too far away…anything! The nearest parking spot was what seemed like a mile away. We ran in.

“I’m okay.  I just have to wear this for 6 weeks, but they are calling a specialist for Rick” Gonzo said in his sling as all our faces changed from worried to grave.

“Gonzo just broke his collar bone, but Rick’s case is more serious,” Ludwig said as he walked into the waiting room.

The next few hours were spent learning again and again why the waiting room is named as it is, jumping up every time someone walked in.  Over the next few hours, we each were visited by at least 20 distant relatives who lived in the area.  To pass the time, we were all playing a game of…

“Rick broke two of his vertebrae,” Mr. Meleragno explained as he walked in.

We all had the same lugubrious thought.

Feeling something on March 15, 2003, I realized that it was to a degree in which I had never felt it before.  This feeling was not fear though; it was happiness, and wonder, and awe, and relief, and anxiety, and most of all pride. 

Three months later, Rick was in almost perfect condition.  I realized that I had a hand in transforming what could have been a fatal injury into nothing more than a bad memory, but I, by no means, did it alone.  After countless years of practice and memorization of skills for “the day we would need it,” we finally used them, and we all proved that we knew what we were doing, even in a very frightening situation.

And for that reason I do not remember March 15, 2003 as a scary day.