Suddenly there was a loud sound and the whole bus jerked to the right. It was 9:27 when I looked at my phone. The light from my phone lit up the whole bus. It was so loud, and everyone was worried about either their phone or other people. This was not an expected event coming home from our basketball game that we just had won, 49-18. I didn’t think this was ever going to happen to us. Nothing like that had ever worried me.

Thirty minutes earlier…

Slowly getting on the bus in pain, since I have a sprained ankle I received playing earlier in the game, I follow Anna back to our seat, smiling and saying, “Hi Liz!” to our bus driver.

“Good game tonight Mariah, sorry to hear about your ankle. Heal fast!” she says.

“Thank you and yeah hopefully.” I respond.

Making my way to the back of the bus, I find Amanda and sit down. We have agreed to sit with each other this season on the bus. All of us are excited about the win against Rice Lake and are waiting to see if we will have practice tomorrow. All we are thinking about is when Gabe said earlier that if we play well, then we won’t have practice.
Gabe comes on the bus and walks towards us. All he says is “Where do you guys want to eat?” We all talk about it and then Madelyn yells out “Kwik Trip.”

We get to Kwik Trip, and all run off the bus, except for me and Anna. Anna and I make our way into the gas station and head towards the pizza. Sadly, they don’t have any left. Wandering around, I pick up an apple, trial mix, and cheese curds. Still not satisfied, I go over to the cooler and look for a drink. I grab the raspberry iced tea and go over to the counter to check out. I make my way back to the bus and talk to Amanda while we wait for everyone to board the bus.

As Gabe counts all of us to make sure that everyone is here, we start to move. Once we are ten minutes into our trip home, we ask Kari to take a picture of the Varsity team to put on our Amery Girls Basketball Instagram page. Kari takes two pictures and sits back down. Two minutes after she sits down my face slams into the seat in front of me.

There was a loud sound and the whole bus jerked to the right. My face hit hard on the seat in front of me. The lights overhead were out, the bus wasn’t running, and we weren’t moving anymore. My nose and head were hurting. Jay, our assistant coach came back and asked if we were alright. Kari and I were crying. All I could hear was “where’s my phone?” It felt like my nose was bleeding (it wasn’t) my head was pounding, and I couldn’t stop crying. Madelyn came up to me and tried to get me to settle down. I needed to text my parents.

I texted my mom and dad and told them that we had just been hit and that I was okay. My mom called me and asked me: “Are you okay, do you need us to come back?”

“No, Gabe said they have another bus coming,” I told her.
“What happened? What did you hit?” she asked.
“A car hit us; we are all okay. I have to go. Gabe is talking to us.” I explained
“Okay, I love you. Keep us updated.”
“Yep, love you too.”

Soon after we started to hear the sirens.

Eventually we saw the bright blue and red flashing lights coming towards us. We all opened the windows and stuck our heads out and looked for the other car. Gabe came back again and told us to call our parents to see if they could come back to the scene. We were on Highway 48, right across from Standfold Church.

The EMT’s came on the bus and asked if anyone was hurt. I raised my hand, since I had a head ache and my nose was hurting. They led me off the bus and into an ambulance. They asked me if I had any pain in certain parts of my head where they were feeling. I said no. They asked if I wanted to be taken to the nearest hospital. I shook my head and answered no. They told me to go back to the bus and wait with the rest of my team.

As I walked back, I heard my mom yell my name. The police told her that I had to get on the bus for more information before I could be released. I made my way to the back of the bus where I was sitting when a lady stopped me to ask me some questions. She asked, “What’s your name? What street do you live on? How old are you? When is your birthday? What is your Father’s name? When is your Father’s birthday?”

I responded.

After the EMT finished asking me questions, Jay came back to figure out whose parents were there at the crash scene. Also, we had to figure out whose parents weren’t coming back. Once we had figured out what kids were going with what parent we could be released. Nobody was going home with my family. We could leave right away and my mom and dad just had to come to one of the police officers and give them their name and date of birth. After the officer had all the information he needed, I left with my parents. We talked about the crash on the way home and talked about the other driver. My team, all my coaches, our bus driver, and I were truly lucky to walk away from this with no one on the bus hurt. This was a traumatic event that had happen to us and everyone handled it very well and was calm about it.

Sadly, the other driver died instantly in the crash. We don’t know what caused her to go over the center line. Please pray for her and her family!