We returned from Reno today. The car ride was about 8 hours, including a 30 minute stop as we were behind a serious accident that required a helicopter. Similar to the big car accident my family experienced on Thanksgiving 10 years ago.

I was 16-years-old and we were traveling to Salt Lake from Reno. I was driving my father's new Expedition when a large road kill (still unsure what it was) was in the road. I swerved and over corrected. It was all downhill from there. Literally, the car rolled downhill about four times. It's still a little fuzzy in my memory, but I remember we stopped and I asked my dad to get the cell phone. No one in the car was responding to me, so I jumped out the window, which was about waist high at this point, and ran to the highway. There I flagged down a trucker who radioed for help. A few memories...I was sick to my stomach and wanted to throw up. My mother was disoriented and her head was bleeding. I remember a paramedic asking me to hold a towel on her head and I was thinking I might puke. Then I said the magic words "my neck hurts." From that point on I was strapped to a backboard until they could do x-rays a few hours later. I shouldn't complain, because my father was strapped to one for several hours until a halo was drilled in his head. We got the royal treatment, two ambulances and then two air med planes to take us back to Reno, because my parents' injuries required more than Elko General Hospital could provide. Surprisingly enough, my sisters and I were basically unharmed, aside from bits of glass and weeds that were embedded in our skin for the next few months. This was all the more surprising because my sisters were not wearing their seat belts. Both of my parents had more serious injuries, although they are both still alive so it couldn't have been that bad. Just kidding guys...

Anyways, if you have ever heard people joke about my driving, this is why. This and a few other small accidents that occured over the next few years. Really quite minuscule. However, I still have somewhat of a phobia of driving. Which is why I flinch at sudden turns and stops and why I prefer not to drive when the weather conditions are less than ideal. Ten years later I am doing much better. I haven't been in an at-fault accident in 5 years and for the most part I will allow most people to drive me around without breaking down into a full blows anxiety attack.