A few years ago when I was eleven years old, my dad was on his way to Fort Wayne to pick up the new golf cart we were getting. In the morning he asked me, “Do you want to come with me to get the golf cart or go to grandma’s house?”

I told him I wanted to go to my grandma’s house because she was making cookies, and I wanted to help her decorate them. He told me that on his way home he would come pick up my little brother and me.

On his way to Fort Wayne, there was a big intersection as wide as a river with icy roads, and he was crossing the road in his truck with the trailer attached to the back hitch of the truck. As he was crossing the intersection, a car didn’t see the stoplight and kept driving toward my dad and hit his truck in the passenger side and sent his truck sliding while the other car was sitting in the middle of the intersection. My dad’s truck went sliding off the road and the trailer came unhitched as my dad rolled over and over in his truck. He heard the sounds of the truck rolling and the windows were crunching like stones as the truck rolled into the ditch. He thought it would never stop.

When the truck stopped rolling and my dad had stopped feeling dizzy, he noticed the top of the truck had been completely torn off while both the passenger and driver’s doors were bent and torn. As some cars passed by, my dad called out for help because he was in a wheel chair and could not move his legs. One dark blue car stopped by his truck, and the guys inside yelled out if he needed them to call 911. My dad yelled, “Yes,” although he only had a scratch on his neck from the seat belt. The two men in the car asked him, “If you only have a scratch from the seat belt, why can’t you get out of the truck by yourself?”

He explained to them that he was in a wheel chair and could not move his legs due to an incident twelve years ago. The men then called 911 for my dad, and while he was at the hospital, he called my grandma first and then my mom.

When my grandma hung up the phone, she looked at my little brother and me and told us to leave our toys at her house, and we could come pick them up later. She told us to hurry and get into the car, so we could go to the hospital.

“Why do we have to go to the hospital, Grandma?” my little brother asked.
“Your dad got into a car crash,” she told us.

The rest of the ride to the hospital everyone in the car was silent except my little brother who was crying softly, and when he stopped, he tried to sing a silly song to help him get through the ride. I didn’t know what to think or even do. When we arrived at the hospital, my mom and my dad were sitting in a room waiting for us, and when we walked over to my dad, he gave my little brother and me big hugs. He told me that if I had gone with him, I would have died. It dawned on me that night that if I decided to go with him that I wouldn’t be here at all.
When I was young, I never wore my seat belt because it scratched my neck, and I didn’t like the feeling. When my dad wrecked his truck and only came out with a scratch from the seat belt, I remind myself that whenever I don’t wear my seat belt if I ever get into a crash, I could possibly not come out alive. My advice to any and all kids who don’t want to wear their seat belt because it bothers them is this: seat belts save lives!