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Kymberly Davis
L. Nordquist
English 1113-552
11 September, 2014
Trust Me It Can Wait
The weekend started off with me being full of excitement and expectation for the
upcoming sophomore semi-formal. The semi-formal was the following weekend. My mother,
best friend Kyndal, and I went to Tulsa to buy me a dress for the dance. Little did I know the
very next night all my dreams of the perfect semi-formal would come to a screeching halt. One
text message that could have, and should have waited, set off a chain reaction that left me unable
to walk, let alone dance, for several months. This is my cautionary tale to everyone who believes
that It cannot wait.
Semi-formal was one of the grandest dances at Yale and the school was buzzing
with excitement. People were already getting dresses while I had to wait until Saturday to go
shopping. When Saturday finally arrived, I could not be happier! My mother, Kyndal, and I went
to Tulsa early in the morning and began to hunt for the perfect dress. After a long morning of
shopping, I picked up a flowing white layered dress with a silver sequence top. I could not wait
for everyone to see me wear it.
The following evening is when my world came crashing down around me. On the
way home from my boyfriends house he got a text from his friend. This text message took his
attention away from the road long enough for him not to notice that the van in front of us had
stopped short. I remember looking up from my phone just in time to see two bright red brake
lights rocketing towards me, then impact. When we hit I had no seatbelt on and my feet were

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placed on the dash. The air bag deployed throwing my legs into my face with such force that it
knocked me unconscious and the fabric of my jeans left burns on my face. When I came to, I
remember waking up in the cold car, my face numb, feeling alone, panicked, and disoriented
with no idea where my boyfriend had gone. I looked around to search for him and to assess the
situation. Looking around I saw that the driver side door had been opened and the windshield
had been shattered. I could smell the oil mixed with the antifreeze as it leaked out of the front of
the Ford Mustangs engine compartment. Feeling panicked and frighten, I attempted to get out of
the car to find my boyfriend which turned out to be a colossal mistake on my part. As soon as my
bare feet hit the ice cold December asphalt pure, white hot agony ran rampant throughout my
legs, and that is the moment at which I began to scream. I screamed for what seemed like an
eternity waiting for somebody to come to my rescue. Luckily, the semi-truck behind us had
stopped in just enough time to avoid hitting us and the driver was a certified Emergency Medical
Technician. He tried to get my anxiety under control long enough to assess my injuries. I could
hardly form a coherent thought through the pain radiating throughout my ankles and legs, I tried
to tell the Emergency Medical Technician my mothers name and phone number, however, I
could not get past the words my mothers name is. I was very fortunate that my boyfriend had
been well enough to contact my family and explain to them that I had been in a car accident. By
the time the ambulance had shown up I was surrounded by my mother, step-father, and
grandfather while I was still trapped in the demolished black mustangs passenger seat. After the
first responders had arrived they lifted up my jeans to discover that I had obvious deformities
on both my left and my right ankles. They then took the pulse in my feet to make sure the blood
had been circulating properly and strapped me into a neck brace before they began to remove me
from the car. After they had successfully extracted me from the car they moved me in to an

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ambulance, cut off my North Face, and placed an intravenous saline lock before leaving the
scene of the accident. After an examination in the emergency room they had said I had shattered
my left ankle and had broken and tore several ligaments in my right ankle.
After they found out I had shattered my left ankle, they decided I needed to undergo
surgery to place two steel screws into my ankle to keep all of the fragments in place in order for
them to heal properly. Since I could not walk and had been in a substantial amount of pain, they
decided to admit me into the hospital. That week had to be one of the most difficult and painful
weeks I have ever had to endure in my life. The morning after my wreck they had physical
therapy come into my room to try to get me to walk! My mother, being a nurse, had no tolerance
for their ignorance. She quickly and effectively shooed them away from my room so that I could
rest. Due to my limited mobility, I had no choice but to have my mother and my sister help me
with everyday tasks (taking showers, changing clothes, etc.). After that experience, I now am no
longer as shy as I used to be. My family not only helped me with simple tasks, but they also
snuck me in food from Texas Roadhouse. The only problem with that is that every time I so
much as looked at the thick, juicy, New York Strip steak my heart monitor would go off, which
was a real nuisance. Because of all of my family and friends entertaining me with coloring books
and stories about life outside the cold hospital room, surgery day came in the blink of an eye!
During my surgery the surgeon found out that not only had my left ankle been shattered, my left
leg was also broken! The break I had in my leg been hidden by the bone fragments from my
ankle! I was released that following afternoon, it took me two months to walk with crutches and
one extra month to learn to walk without assistance.
From this experience, I have learned the hard way that there is no such thing as a painless
lesson. Even though I had to go through such a horrible experience, I am glad that I can share

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this story with people and warn them of the dangers of not being attentive when use the road.
Maybe now the people that know this story will ignore their phone when they get a message,
wear their seatbelts, and resist the urge to put their feet on the dash. Perhaps if my boyfriend had
realized that his friends text message could wait I would have spent my semi-formal dancing in
my beautiful white dress instead of being stuck in a wheelchair at home.