Guardian Angel

From: Atikin (malyechum@hotmail.com)
Story type: Angel
Location: Longbeach Washington
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Fri Feb  8 17:20:02 2008

Last summer, when I was 17, I went on a trip with my best friends to Longbeach Washington for my friends Katie and Kirsten's birthday. There were about 12 of us total and we had a giant silver Durango. When we were on the beach my friends decided to drive in the sand with people standing on the bumper and holding on to the top of the bike racks. My best friend was driving and I had seen other of my friends doing it and I thought it looked fun. We were only going about 10 miles and hour, if that. At first I was hesitant, but then my best friend who had been driving, decided that she wanted to be on the back and that she wanted me to go with her. I didnt see that it would be a big deal since we were going so slow, but I was very wrong.

Our friend Maullie decided to drive while Kirsten and I were on the back. She started out slowly, but then as she got further and further, she began to speed up. I started to get really scared because I didnt have a hold of both sides of the bike rack, I was only able to hold onto one side. Kirsten had ahold of both so she had a better grip. As she began to speed up I started to yell for her to slow down, but she didnt hear me. She didnt even pay attention when we started banging on the top of the car to get her attention!

Then out of nowhere, she turned in a giant cookie, and my hands slipped off the bike rack. It threw me off the side of the truck going nearly 35 miles an hour. As I was flying through the air, I remember putting my hands out in front of me and seeing the sand. I remember thinking "My face! Im going to hit my face!"

Somehow, just as my face was about to break my fall, I landed. My knee smacked the ground first and I landed on my side. My head didnt hit at all. There was a doctor on the beach who saw the whole thing and he also said he doenst know how I turned like that when my face was about 3 inches from hitting first.

As soon as I sat up I realized how lucky I was. My knee broke the fall, and it was already swollen and purple. It swelled up to the size of a baseball, and I wasnt able to walk on it at all for quite a while. As time went by, my leg got worse. I had to go to the hospital and get blood drained from my knee that had built up underneath, and though it has been about 6 months since that day, I still have trouble with that knee. It swells up and I dont have feeling in certain parts of it. The doctors told me that if I had landed on my face with the impact that my knee had, it could have snapped my neck.

I dont know how I managed to land on my side that day, but I definately like to think that an angel saved me by turning me just before I hit. I realize that it was a stupid choice to ride on the back of the truck, and I wont do it again. I know Im not meant to die yet, or I wouldnt have been saved that day, but Im not going to risk it by doing stupid things like that again.