English 101 4k - Define Wreck

Kate Pettit

English 101 4K

1-26-16

Paper 1 Final Draft

Define Wreck

The first time pulling out of your driveway alone may be the best feeling in the world, but when you really think about it, its also the scariest. You’ve had a year of your parents telling you to slow down, to watch out for the car coming up next to you, to make sure you’re not following the car ahead too closely. Now its your turn to think on your own and hope that you make the right choices, because one bad decision or one wrong move can put not only you but other drivers in danger.

        To park on campus at the high school you must complete the alive at 25 driver’s education course.  No one took the class seriously before they went in, but the second you walked out you had a complete different mind set. The instructor, a highway patrol officer of 27 years, pulls up a slideshow with all of the drunk driving, and other wrecks pictures that he had worked in his career. Pictures of bloody, gruesome people and cars involved in some type of accident filled the screen. Needless to say, he had our attention for the rest of the class. Before we left we were all handed an exit slip, the instructors final comment to us was “This exit slip determines whether or not you pass the class, if you’ve paid attention to me this will not be hard, define the word wreck (Scott Housing, Personal Correspondence).” As soon as he handed out the slips of paper my mind went blank. I sat there thinking “can I really not define wreck right now; of all words this is so easy.” Finally, after about five minutes and almost everyone but me and an older woman had left, I wrote “a collision caused by one car colliding with another.”

I remember the night of the wreck very clearly.  I decided to take the quicker route home from my friends, which was highway nine, bypass west. I had Justin Bieber blaring about as loud as it would go because my favorite song of his was playing. I was singing my heart out at the stop light in front of pizza hut. When I looked to my right, I saw a boy staring at me laughing hysterically, I’m guessing my singing was just that bad. As the light turned green we proceeded ahead, me with my music turned completely down out of embarrassment. The boy passed me very quickly and then out of no where swung in front of my car towards the median, almost as if he had forgotten he had to turn.  

I knew there was nothing that I could possibly do to keep from colliding with his driver side. I slammed on breaks and laid on the horn. The sound of the squealing tires and smell of burning rubber is something that will never leave my mind. As soon as my car slammed into his car, the airbag deployed and I lunged forward into it. I sat there in the dusty fumes of the airbag screaming for someone to help me. I was scared beyond compare. I was in so much pain, I felt as if I were going to pass out. I managed to feel around for my phone and call my dad who had probably been in bed asleep for about 3 hours. I couldn’t move my right hand or arm at all, at this point I was dialing with my nose.  All I could scream was “Daddy, I’m hurt” over and over again. Nothing else would come out except those exact words.