Today is my 23rd birthday . . .

My friends and I planned a road trip to Las Vegas. I had wanted to do this for years; everyone always talks about how exhilarating the experience is. We lived about nine hours away, so we left at 4:00 AM. This would get us to our hotel around 1:00 PM. I booked a beautiful hotel. I wanted big and flashy because this was probably the only time I would ever do this. The pictures showed a tan and light pink color scheme. There were three bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a living room with a huge couch and some chairs, a spacious kitchen, and a beautiful chandelier in the middle of the room. 

We were about three hours into the drive, and I started getting the weird feeling like something bad was going to happen. I just brushed it off and blamed it on stressing that I wanted this whole trip to be perfect. We decided to take a little back road for some scenery. Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger's seat listening to music; everyone in the car was being so loud, and I needed to calm down. Amy said something, so I took out one of my earbuds. As I look up, I see a car coming straight towards us. 

It was a two lane road, and the car had been driving on our side. I had no time to think or process anything that was about to happen. The next thing I know, I open my eyes and realize that we are upside down. I heard people frantically screaming, the sound of shards of glass falling from the windows, and the sound of my heart pounding inside of my chest, which felt like it was tightening every time I took a breath. The smell was awful: hints of gas and burning rubber. I knew that my earbuds were still attached to my phone, so I pulled them until I saw my phone at the end. My hand trembled as I punched the number into the phone : 9-1-1. 

A woman answered saying, “9-1-1, What is your emergency?”. 

With a shaky voice I replied, “My friends and I have been in a car wreck”. 

She asked my name, and I told her, Callie Jacobs. 

The 9-1-1 operator then asked, “Do you know where you are?”

Then it hit me, I had no idea where I was…

I told the operator, “ I do not know where I am.”

She said that they had pinged my location and were sending people. I rubbed some sweat off of my face, and when I looked at my hand, it was all bloody. That was the last thing I remembered while we were still in the car. I'm guessing from the blood loss, I passed out before EMS got there. 

I woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. I felt like I could feel nothing, yet everything at the same time. Everything went white for a split second. I'm not sure what happened after that, but I woke up to myself standing over my body in a hospital bed with a nurse in dark blue scrubs and my mom and dad standing there with her. They were sobbing, and as I reached out to hug them, I realized that I couldn't.