Life or Death? It was My Choice.

From: 
Story type: Near Death Experience
Location: Kansas
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Wed Sep  3 15:43:57 2008

My maternal grandmother gave birth to three children and within a span of six years lost a daughter (my mother) at age 21 in a car accident and a son at age 20 due to unknown causes. She is an amazing woman and I am grateful to her for raising me! With that being said, let me begin my story.

In April of 1993 (I was 23 yrs. old) I was riding with my friend, her son and his buddy. We had gone out for dinner and were returning home. Little did I know, but my friend had been drinking most of the day and was intoxicated.

She was wiggling the wheel back and forth to make the car swerve. The boys were laughing and her son said, "That was fun. Do it again". I told her to slow down and quit messing around, but she did it again. This time she lost control of the car and I soon could see the ground rushing up to meet my face.....

Everything was in slow motion and I remember the car rolling over and thinking to myself, "I'm going to die just like my mom". All of a sudden my life flashed in front of me, or rather the faces of my family and friends flashed in front of me. Basically, anyone that was important to me. The last face that I remember was my grandmother's face.

Something came over me and I told myself, "NO, I can't die! My grandma can not take the loss of another young one".

I came to and found myself hanging upside down and in excruciating pain. I heard people outside the vehicle saying, "Oh my God, the passenger is dead". I was the passenger!

They finally realized that I wasn't dead, but I was close. My blood pressure was 50/30 and I was trapped in the car. Once I was in the hospital and stabilized, my neurosurgeon informed me that I was very lucky. He said, "Someone was watching out for you today, b/c if your neck would have broken one millimeter more you would be paralyzed from the neck down and would have died while trapped in the vehicle".

I honestly believe that I was given the choice to live or to die that day and seeing my grandma's face helped my realize how much I needed to live.