In the summer of 2016, I was headed to Plano with my aunt to pick up her new horse Baron. Baron was a stunning quarter horse with a coat that matched the color of dark chocolate. After we arrived and talked with his owners we gathered his papers and information, and then we were headed back to the barn in Copper Canyon.

On our way home our stomachs began to growl so we exited the highway and stopped by Panda Express. We went through the drive through because we wanted Baron to get back to the barn as fast as possible because the Texas heat began to rise as the day went on. After we got our food we got back on the highway. As soon as we took the lids off our panda bowls the smell of orange chicken and rice roamed the truck.

 As we got closer to town we approached a stop light, it turned red so my aunt brought the truck and trailer to a hard stop. As we waited for the light to change to green my aunt saw a problem beginning to occur. She saw a minivan run the red light and run into a small blue car which was being pushed towards us. She yelled at me to hold on and I didn’t second guess myself. I was in the back seat and I closed my eyes and braced myself by holding on to the sides of the back seat. All I could hear was the screeching of tires burning as they slid across the highway.

As I opened my eyes I saw the damage that was done. We were involved in a head on wreck, our car had been pushed back about 50 feet. There were five cars involved, and all the cars had damage that would need to be fixed. The car that had been hit by the minivan was totaled.The doors were so smashed that they were jammed. The fireman had to pry the crumbled door open to release the passengers.The woman in the minivan stormed out of her car with her children and begin to yell at the other drivers involved.

As I started to grasp on to what happened the paramedics came over and asked if I needed to ride in the ambulance to get checked at the hospital.Luckily my aunt and I were fine and didn’t need to go . To this day I still think I got a concussion because I don’t remember feeling the impact. As we investigated the damage of the cars we noticed the minivan was leaking fluid. Me and my aunt jumped to the conclusion that it was gas and that we needed to get away from the crash site in case of an explosion. So we unloaded Baron and headed across the street to a patch of grass.

As we waited for the other cars to be towed away we also watched the paramedics get the other passengers to safety. At this time we were also gathering insurance information. But to our luck the woman didn’t have enough insurance coverage to pay for all the damaged vehicles.

Once we were cleared to leave we slowly pulled off and got back on the highway and headed towards the barn.The front of the truck was smashed and there were wires hanging below so we had to drive very slow the whole way home. Once we arrived at the barn we got Baron settled in and my mom came to make sure I was okay.

This experience has made me grateful for every moment. Because if I would’ve been in the front seat instead of the back the airbag could’ve gone off and injured me greatly. Me and my aunt were the luckier ones out of everyone involved. I’m so grateful that we weren’t injured like the other people. This puts life into perspective for me and shows me how I should cherish every moment I live because it can all be taken away from me in seconds.