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Ryan Blaine
Karen Tucker
ENC 2135
7 July 2016

The Day my World Stood Still

The weather on this particular Friday morning in the summer of 2006 was a
blistering 112 degrees. Disney World in Orlando, FL was the destination that Timber
Trace Elementary summer camp was headed for the day. Its 5:15am when my mother
bursts through my door, beating my alarm clock to wake me up for field trip day. She
flips the light switch on faster than the blink of an eye and the next thing I know, the
lights are gleaming into my corneas and I loved all of it. I jump out of bed, put on my off
white camp t-shirt, a pair of bright red basketball shorts, and some white Nike shoes. My
mother and I run to the car and we race to Timber Trace Elementary School to sign me in
and drop me off on time before the bus left without me. Thankfully, we arrived promptly
and as I said bye to my mother she had a tear appear in her eye, and it created a sparkle. I
asked, Mom, why are you starting to cry? She responds with, I just want you to be
safe baby boy. I then replied saying, I will momma, you know I will. Those were the
last words spoken before she left to head to work, but neither of us could have imagined
what would happen later that day
The first thing that I do is say hi to Ms. Katie - my counselor who couldnt have
been older than 20 years of age - and hop onto the large, charcoal colored Greyhound
charter bus that was idling in the bus loop. Im assigned to bus one, thats where the little

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kids are, I thought to myself. As it turns out, all of my friends are on this bus, so in turn, a
brilliant smile overtakes my face and I sprint and sit close to my friends. Theres a seat
open right next to Alex. Alex is the same age as me, about 10 years old, and Alex has
some scraggly dirty blonde hair, more like an Afro, but a small one at that. As soon as I
sit next to Alex on the bus, we both pull out our little navy blue Nintendo Gameboy
Advances and start playing some version of the Pokemon series video game. After a few
minutes of going back and forth discussing which phase of the game we were in and
which Pokemon we have recently caught, Ms. Katie and the other counselors hop on the
bus as well, and tell us that its time to head to Disney World for the day! Granted, we all
knew the destination of the bus, but I personally had no idea which theme park we were
headed to. The whole bus fell into an uproar of pure joy when Ms. Katie told us that we
were going to Magic Kingdom. Eyes lit up, frowns from how early we had to wake up
became radiant smiles, Im pretty sure my other friend Drews hair stood straight up out
of his head from the excitement. The next few hours after the humungous announcement
were boring to say the least, we all just sat there, some playing video games, some
reading books, and for the lucky few, sleeping. Ive never been one to sleep in a moving
vehicle, whether its a car, train, bus, plane, I just cant seem to do it. But, as the time
dragged on, my excitement kept expanding inside of me like a hot air balloon, I was
pumped.
The next thing that I know, the bus is pulling into the Magic Kingdom parking lot
and cheers break out from my fellow campers and I, we made it. As we all are departing
my bus, I hear Ms. Katie telling all of us one by one, please be safe today guys, dont
put yourself in harms way. Just make sure you use your brains before you do anything.

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Also, meet back at the ferry stop at 4:30pm. After getting off the bus, were all huddled
in our hand selected groups of munchkins to run around Magic Kingdom with, we all get
handed our tickets for entry, and we sprint towards the turnstiles to gain entry like
speeding bullets. I stomp proudly up to the man checking tickets and he looks at me a few
times over, giving me a funny, dirty stare, then letting me know Im a-ok to go into the
park. In this moment, Im overjoyed and ready to take this park by storm. My friends and
I run as fast as our little chicken legs can carry us over to the go-karts attraction first. We
want to make sure we get there quick before the lines gets out of control. After about 20
minutes, its our turn to ride, I push Alex and Nick out of my way so I can snag the blue
go-kart, blues my favorite color, so I need the blue go-kart. Im sitting in the blue gokart, 3 carts back from first place, the light blinks from red, to yellow, then to green,
were off to the races, literally. Im trying as hard as I possible can to swerve in and out of
the traffic of go-karts as they pass me, but my cart is going at least 5 miles per hour
slower than everybody elses, so when the pit crew was waving all of us into pit lane
the entrance and exit of the ride I had a semi frown on my face, part from being sad that
I lost, part from knowing that its all in good fun and that it was no big deal at all. As the
day propelled on, my little group of rascals ran around the theme park like chickens with
our heads cut off. Running to this attraction, not wanting to wait in a 2 hour long line, so
we walk away only to have our attention grabbed not even 5 minutes later by another
attraction, with an even longer line to wait in. Thankfully the line goes much quicker than
the sign read, and this attraction was Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin. If you
werent aware, this is the same Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story series of animated
films. For this attraction, you and 1 more space cadet (anybody really but Alex was my

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partner in the ride) sit in a lime green and navy blue space buggy with laser guns
mounted in front of you. Alex and I look at each other with smirks on our faces, Im
going to destroy his score. The goal of the attraction itself is to defeat the Buzzs arch
enemy the evil Zerg, and to do that, one needs to shoot their laser cannon at Zergs
minions clearly marked with giant targets on them and get the highest score possible.
The ride starts, its pitch black, then, out of nowhere, the tune, Its a small world starts
to faintly play in the background, then, POW, the tune stops, the lights come on, and loud
laser noises start to come out of the speakers in the space buggy. Its a sensory overload,
flashing lights; loud noises and an overwhelming amount of colors hit me all at once.
When my eyes finally adjusted, it was too late. Alex started to shoot Zergs minions
almost a full minute sooner than I did and I had a feeling that he would beat my high
score. After the ride I run to check my score and somehow, I blew his score out of the
water and I could not have been happier! But, it was starting to near 4:15pm and we all
needed to head to the ferry so we wouldnt be late. As my group and I walked to the ferry
to meet up with everybody else, I couldnt stop rubbing it in Alexs face that I was the
one to defeat Zerg and how I shot more minions with my laser and what now. I was on
cloud nine.
Fast-forward roughly fifteen minutes and we all make it to the ferry entrance, only
for a torrential down pouring of rain with no shelter for at least 300 feet, all in addition to
the ferry being nowhere in sight. I look around and see a bunch of sad faces and think to
myself, lets brighten this dim patch up a little, so I start playing tag with Alex and of
course he joins in. Next thing I know theres about 15 of us playing and its a blast, but,
with my luck, all good things come to a screeching halt as I jump on a railing to sit on

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that is the barrier between the shrubbery and the walkway, and shortly after I reach the
climax of my jump, I start to come down onto the wet, faded green railing, and flip
backwards, heading straight for concrete. On the way down, my skull makes very hard
contact with the vertical beam of the railing and I smash into the concrete like if
somebody dropped a sack of bricks. I lay there, lifeless, bleeding out a large crack in my
skull. This was the incident that nobody couldve imagined. This is every parents worst
nightmare when sending his or her child off with a summer camp or under somebody
elses supervision. Not to be religious because my family is not a very religious group,
but God must have been looking out for me at this exact moment. Another minute lifeless
on that concrete, I couldve bled out, I couldve died; but God had other plans and I
believe this wholeheartedly to this day. In this moment, as I hit the concrete and lay
lifeless, a doctor specializing in orthopedics (bones) happens to be walking by and jumps
to action. A simple bystander, on vacation with his family, with the first aid knowledge as
well as the knowledge of how to treat a major head wound, jumps to my rescue. He rips
his off-white shirt off of his body, runs over to me as I come back into consciousness,
helps me to my feet, and wraps his shirt around my the wound and the rest of my head,
applying copious amounts of pressure to keep the spewing blood at bay. Everybody just
stands there in shock, as the doctor yells out, SOMEBODY CALL 911 ALREADY!
Ms. Katie dials the number as fast as she can and the paramedics take roughly 5 minutes
to get to the scene seeing as they were stationed relatively close by. The doctor hands me
off to the paramedics, goes over to Ms. Katie, they exchange a few words, she hugs him
and thanks him for his quick reaction and gets all of his information. The paramedics are
looking at my fractured skull at this point, and I distinctly remember them saying, oh

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hell be fine, he can sit on the bus to go back to Palm Beach Gardens a two and a half
hour bus ride- also stating the fracture is about 1 inch in length and should need a few
stitches or staples. No big deal right? So we get on the ferry, head toward the bus that
parked in the furthest lot it seemed, which couldve been because of the constant pain and
throbbing coming from the top of my skull as I hold ice bags and rags to the injured area.
We all get on the buses and begin our long ride home, as Ms. Katie contacts my mother.
Fast forward about two and a half hours and now the bus is pulling back into Timber
Trace elementary school and Im escourted off of the bus before anybody else to be given
to my frantic mother. Are you okay? she asked, I responded with, Take me to the
hospital and theyll tell you that, clearly I was fine to be a smartass to my mother. My
mother races me to the Emergency Room and the nurse immediately goes to get the
doctor on call, and he sees us. He states that he will need to take a look at the fracture and
I had no problem with him seeing it too, so he looks, and he does something that the
highly trained (SARCASM) paramedics didnt do, move the hair on my head to reveal
another 2 inches in length of the fracture. Idiots. The doctor looks at the nurse, looks at
my mother, then looks at me with a puzzled look on his face. He then asks me, very
seriously, How have you been conscious through this whole ordeal? I responded with,
I honestly dont even feel it, its so numb up there from 3 hours of constant ice and
adrenaline. He then orders the nurse to get 13 staples and the staple tool and explains
what will be done to heal the wound. He applies an anesthetic to the wound, then goes to
town on the stapling, like a jackhammer pummeling through concrete, yeah, that was my
head.

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To this day, roughly 10 years later, I still get random, sporadic, dull pains in the
area of the fracture. From what Ive read, it takes anywhere from 7-11 years to fully
recover from a severe head trauma and you could definitely say that this was in that
category. I turned out fine, better than fine actually. Im currently a junior at the Florida
State University and pursing a degree in Political Science with a minor in Economics. I
think, talk, walk, play sports, like a fully functioning, regular human being, because
thankfully, I was able to recover and become relatively normal. I never knew name of
the man that saved my life that day, but I owe him so much more.