From the corner of my eye I saw it. The old shabby stationwagon with the vague silhouettes of two people. My friend and I had been busily chatting about girl stuff. The day was beautiful and springlike. I really liked my new shimmery purple blouse that I had bought recently from a boutique that offered the utmost in the current fashions for young girls. The fabric was cool against my skin and it was so unlike me to wear such a bright color that I felt especially foxy in it. My long dark hair seemed a perfect contrast to the intensity of the color. What a fun day it would be. My friend and I were going to the hospital where she worked as a nurses aide to pick up her paycheck. And then I’m sure that we would have done something fun. We always did. She loved her car almost as much as I loved my blouse. It was a dark blue ‘68 mustang. I was so jealous of her for having that car that she had even given a name to. Brill. I don’t remember any longer what that was all about. Two young girls. A springlike day. Racing towards the nearby city with a mission and always the excitement that two young girls could find at almost any given moment. What a fun day.

Then it happened. From out of the corner of my vision into the forefront suddenly there was something blocking the road ahead. The sound of crashing into something. A large boom followed by crunching and twisting of metal...shattering of glass. A feeling of something hard on my head. Sounds of screeching tires and I think a horn honking. When I pulled myself back into my seat from the glass encasing my head, I heard my friend shriek... 'My Car!!!' I had a hard time lifting my head and then I saw it. A steady gushing of blood from my head. 'Oh, My God! I’m cut! I’m bleeding!' Then I couldn’t speak. Shock. I knew I didn’t want to die but I didn’t know how to save myself. How much time had passed? A few minutes I think.

Someone was at my door. A man and a boy. They were trying to get the door open and I heard one say 'It won’t open.' Was this my coffin? Someone managed to get the door open but I couldn’t hold my head up instead I twisted my neck to the side where I met the wide eyes of a boy, probably a teenage boy, and he said 'Oh No!' and walked away. I thought those words certainly did not bode well for me. The man left too. I had no medical training but I remembered hearing one time that a person could bleed to death in a matter of so many minutes. But how many? I couldn’t remember. What was it about this day? Oh yeah, what a fun day it was going to be. I thought I must be going to die. We were far away from the hospital.

How much time had passed? I couldn’t think. Then I felt his hand on my arm and another hand on my back. I heard a man’s voice. 'I’ll be right back hang on.' I had never had a touch feel so reassuring to me and a voice never sounded so calm and sincere to me. I don’t know how long he was gone but when he returned he had a sweatshirt all rolled up into a ball and he took one of my free hands and placed it over the gapping wound on my head instructing me to 'press hard and keep my fingers closed.' Then he gently but firmly placed the sweatshirt in a wadded clump on top of my hand and then took my other hand and said 'you have to hold on to it and press as hard as you can.' The next thing I knew he was picking me up in his arms. I felt so small. He carried me to another car explaining to me that he had flagged them down and told them that I needed to get to the hospital quickly or... His voice trailed off. When we were safely seated in the backseat of another car he still had me cradled in his arms and for the first time I saw his face. He looked very kind. His eyes were so big and so blue. I felt safe. For the first time I thought of my girlfriend and she was sitting there next to us. Not speaking. Her face looked distorted or was that my vision? I looked up into those eyes again and never let go of them. I said, 'Am I going to die?' He didn’t respond to my question. But his gaze never left me alone. I wasn’t afraid.

Finally. The hospital. The man was gone in an instant and then there was a nurse looking at me and yelling for an orderly to bring a wheel chair. Things seemed to be moving quickly. Actually spinning out of control and I felt dizzy. Suddenly I was stretched out on a table and a doctor by the name of Nixon walked in the room. Very serious. He asked the nurse for something and then he said to me, 'I am going to tie off your main artery.' I thought the bleeding would stop. I was wrong. A pain that to this day I have not forgotten nor have I ever been able to explain the feeling, seared through my head. I must have screamed. Dr. Nixon said, ' I just saved your life...be quiet.' And then he was gone. My brother and sister in law were ushered into the room. I didn’t know how they knew that I was there. Later, my sister in law told me that the blood running from my head was dripping onto the floor and they had to leave. Then there was another doctor next to me and he told me he was going to repair my wound. He seemed nice and even though I couldn’t see him because of the drape over my head he kept talking to me. He said I wouldn’t feel the shots...I did. It took quite awhile and then he was finished. Dr. Nixon came back and said 'We usually do sutures on the face closer together than that but all in all you did pretty good.' My face?

The nurse wrapped my bloody hair around my head and then began to wrap layer after layer of gauze around my head until it looked like a turban. She told me that I had to go for an xray and then if my vitals were okay they would let me go home. I asked her how long I had been there. 'Oh...about an hour. Funny thing though. The call came in for the ambulance to be sent to the scene of your accident just as you were arriving. Lucky for you because that much more time and you would have bled to death.' What a fun day. A car accident. A man came out of the blue and got me to a hospital just in the nick of time. A man with a calm voice and those blue eyes that never left me. One hour and I was put back together again. One hour.