Smoking and Driving

By Rachel Kulikowski

Senior Staff Writer

It was a warm summer night in August. That summer, I had just received my first car. It was an older green Volkswagen Jetta that smelled like aged leather inside. I remember being extremely happy about the freedom that comes with having a car. That night I been hanging out at a friends house and it was getting late. At this point I felt everyone was becoming tired including me, so I decided to head home. Sometimes relaxing summer nights have a way of making you feel like nothing could go wrong, but I had been mistaken.

I yawned as I put my key into the ignition and started to drive off. Even though I only lived across town I definitely was exhausted so I decided the best thing to do was turn up the music and light up a cigarette. This probably was not a good idea however, I was not worried about it because I thought for some odd reason multitasking would wake me up. At this point I was only a few blocks away from my house when I dropped the cigarette I was smoking as I was still driving. I recall the cigarette falling to the ground but the burning ember on the end fell onto my bare leg and was burning my skin. This resulted in me taking my eyes off the road for a split second and slamming my car into a tree. I looked up and all I could see was an airbag and broken glass.

For anyone who's been in a serious automobile accident when it is your fault, you probably can relate to the anxiety I felt at that moment. It’s almost hard to describe. And for a split second it almost did not feel real. Reality did rush into my brain quickly as I tasted blood in my mouth and the strong scent of gasoline leaked into my nose. I was not hurt to bad just broke my nose so I was able to step out of the vehicle. The car was not okay though it was wrapped around the tree and smoke was pouring out of it. I did realize that my cell phone was somewhere in the car but I was too panicked to go back in and search through the car.

Something that I thought was pretty strange was that there were houses everywhere, yet everyones houses remained dark. No one turned their lights on or looked outside everything around me was still so calm. I wondered how no one heard that happen. I definitely needed help and felt relief when a neighboring house’s kitchen light came on and a door opened. I saw an older woman looking at me so I approached her door to ask her if she could call the police but she slammed the door. I knocked on the door and her kitchen light went off. At that point I felt extremely helpless.

I never thought of myself as a threatening looking person, maybe it was because I had blood all over my shirt but clearly there was a crashed car right behind me. I thought maybe the woman was going to call the police so I sat on the curb when a Cutlass Supreme pulls up. An older man with long hair got out of the car and told me he’d call the police. He let me use his phone to call my mom and gave me a bottle of water. I was happy someone did help me and it was not a weirdo he was actually a nice guy. When the police arrived the woman who originally slammed the door in my face emerged from her house commenting that she heard glass breaking, so I guess she was not going to call the police at all which is why I was lucky that the guy in the Cutlass pulled up. This was a very bad situation, I only had the car for a short time and had already destroyed it. I couldn't help  that I had to drive home tired but I could have just concentrated on the road rather than smoking and playing with the radio. I did not expect that to happen at all.

According to E.how.com "Smoking-related tasks are considered in the category of driver inattentiveness as noted in a 2006 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration titled "The Impact of Driver Inattention on Near-Crash/Crash Risk. Drivers who are engaged in tasks not related to driving, such as reaching for a cigarette, lighting or extinguishing the cigarette and smoking while driving, increase the risk of having an accident by two-to-three times that of normal driving.”

Totaling my first car was a dangerous but important lesson for me. I actually really have been a lot more careful since that night. The car I currently own I received about 6 years ago and have no had a major accidents. That night could have been a lot worse I could have had someone else in the car, hit a person rather than a tree, and I think about these things to this day which is why it’s important for everyone to be careful, cars are expensive, and multitasking and driving is definitely not worth it. This is something I am sure everyone knows but takes for granted.

Car Frenzy

By Dannyy Alamo

Senior Staff Writer

I was with my friend at the time and we decided to go for a drive it was really late and my grandmother always told me once I got home I shouldn’t step back out when it was past midnight because that’s usually when bad things happened. Whenever my grandmother said things like that I got annoyed and believed that it was all superstition. It was the fall of 2009 September to be exact, I was living in Killeen, TX and I had just left my  the movie theater.

I didn’t listen to my grandmother and still went for the ride with my friend. I was driving down a road that was 50 mph and wasn’t paying attention to the road; I was listening to music and laughing. While I was driving I got way too distracted and didn’t see that there was a cinder block in the middle of the road. When I got close enough to see it I tried to go around it but do to the speed of the road my car swerved and lost control. I spun around three times, went through a nearby gate and crashed into a building that was behind the gate. My motor came into the front seat and pinned me in my car.

At first I didn’t realize what happened I was sort of in a daze and didn’t realize that we were in an actual accident. I remember sitting straight and feeling the throbbing of my head  because when the airbag deployed my head hit the door frame. I look over to my friend to see if she’s ok and realized that she’s also pinned in her seat. I realized that I had to control my emotions and behaviors so not to frighten her.

I asked her was she okay?  She looked herself over and replied, “yeah I’m ok.” I decided to try and get out of the car but noticed that my door was jammed due the impact. I decided that I needed to throw my body against the door in an attempt to try and pry it open.

I was able to open my door but I couldn’t get out. I remember smelling the gas, the fire and the burnt rubber. I remember seeing the smoke and the flames. I heard the crackling of the fire and the engine still going. My engine pinned me in the drivers seat on my right thigh. I tried hard to pull my leg out of the space but my leg was really stuck. I quickly searched for my phone and when I found it I dialed 911 to get in contact with the police. When they answered I tried to remain calm and explain the accident, the location and how badly we were hurt. I started feeling this excruciating pain go up my right leg from the tip of my toes to my hip bone. It felt like a strong surge of fire with a pop at the end shooting up my leg. After about 15 minutes the police, ambulance and transporting helicopter came and got us out of the car and into ambulances.

I arrived at the hospital and was rushed into surgery. I don’t remember much about the moments before that besides the doctor telling me to recite a color, a number and a letter he was going to say to me. I remember being told to count back from 100 and this cooling feeling going through me, then I felt as if I was asleep. I remember that during this sleep like phase I was really cold and felt like I was being ripped apart. Then I felt warmth and I was being woken up by the doctor.

I awoke to see figures in front of me and my vision was very unclear. I blinked a few times to process what was in front of me and saw six faces 1 that I recognized  and five that I didn’t. I recognized my grandmothers face and stared at her while in confusion. I tried to speak but my mouth felt so dry. A man in all white gave me a cup of water to moisten my throat. I asked what happened because I couldn’t move my foot.

The doctor explained that I had gotten into an accident, broken my right femur bone and had to go through immediate surgery to have a metal rod inserted into my thigh to replace the broken bone. I started to cry because of the fear that maybe I wouldn’t be able to walk again. The doctor told me that there was something else that he needed to tell me. I said,” OK”, and he replied,”During the surgery, your heart stopped having a pulse.” I looked at him a little confused and he said,” Mr. Alamo during surgery you died and we had to bring you back to life, I don’t know why but we have ran some test to figure out if it was something from our part.”

Again I began to cry, to hear the words you died was just crazy. After processing everything that happened, I started to have flashbacks of my grandmother telling how I need to pay attention when I’m driving and that I shouldn’t go back out for a ride after I already got  myself home and was preparing to go to sleep. I realized that even though I didn’t permanently die I could’ve and that that was God’s way of telling me listen to my elders.