It Has Been Nine Years

Nine years. Today marks the 9^th anniversary of one of the worst experiences of my life. It was November 8^th, I didn’t know what had happened, what was happening or how I ended up where I am. I was cold.  I remember trying to get out the car but the door was stuck.   I had this feeling in my stomach, a feeling where I was struggling to get air. Smoke cluttered my vision. The door was stuck. I hear someone screaming “try to stay still, give me a phone number.” My eyes close. The Jaws of Life, you hear about it all the time. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a hydraulic mechanism that’s used to open a car in the case of an extreme accident, if the person inside isn’t easily accessible. The smell in the air is a smell I will never forget; it’s a distinguishing, disgusting smell of burnt rubber. They wrap an oxygen mask around me.  But still, I have no idea what’s really going on.  All of a sudden, I feel arms being wrapped around me.  Firefighters and EMTs are pulling me. But how bad is it that I need to get pulled out where I am?  All of a sudden – I feel this pain in my legs. It’s as if I’m a piece of rubber or gum, only my top half is coming out but my bottom half is stuck.  I scream through the oxygen mask and black out again and see nothing but a white light.   And then they realize the extent of how bad the situation really is.  I wake up again to the loud noise of the Jaws of Life.  It’s like I was reborn at that moment.  I remember being dragged out and put on a stretcher.  I feel wet, and a warm feeling as well.  From this moment on, I feel everything that is happening but still can’t see a thing.  Something is broken for sure, but I don’t know what. My legs were so crushed up that the feeling of them trying to straighten them up was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. A six hour surgery with plates, rods, pins, screws. They managed to save my legs.  There was a chance one of them would get amputated.  I had suffered from a broken patella, a broken femur, and a broken tibia and fibula.  The doctor told me it would take me over 6 month to try to get up and learn how to walk again.  I remember it being after Christmas where I couldn’t take it anymore I was going crazy. I needed to do something.   One day while my parents were at work, I did something I shouldn’t have. I completely disregarded the doctor’s orders and managed to throw myself off the bed and start moving.   I remember holding onto anything I could in order to move. Sometimes you just have to take risks and do the impossible. 

Vocabulary Words

1.     Cluttered(adjective)- A collection of things lying around in a mess. Anything  untidy

2.     Disgusting(adjective)- Causing a strong feeling of dislike

3.     Crazy(adjective)-Being out of the ordinary

4.     Warm(adjective)-Feelings or sensations of heat

5.     Wet(adjective)-Consisting of, containing, covered with, or soaked with liquid (such as water

6.     Crushed(adjective)- Badly damaged or destroyed

7.     Cold(adjective)-having a low temperature that is uncomfortable

Vocabulary Exercise

Fill in the blanks with the correct word from the list given.

1.      My room is                              with a ton of dirty laundry and messy shoes. I should definitely clean this up.

2.      It was a                        and muggy day.

3.      My dog keeps barking for no reason. He is driving me                            !

4.      His leg was                               badly from the accident.

5.      After the kids fell in a puddle of mud, they felt                              and were in need of a shower.

6.      The winter will bring lots of snow and                               weather.

7.      It’s raining today, maybe I should bring my umbrella so I don’t get                              .

Grammar Point

Why teach grammar? Use grammar as a tool to help students write better.  As students revise and edit their writing, teachers can provide grammar instruction that guides students in their attempts to identify and correct problems in sentence structure and usage.

Grammar Exercise

Write a short story containing 10 sentences of a funny or sad moment you have experienced. Make sure you use proper punctuation and include at least five adjectives.