Shaken Up

By: Lizzie Cothran

Abby Wood had quite a trip to China. Not only did she participate in the typical site-seeing, tour-taking, cultural-learning ways of a visitor, but while Abby was there, she experienced her first earthquake. But the earthquake wasn’t the last thing that was going to shake up her summer.

The sun is beaming through the window, and begins to make Abby doze off in the backseat of the gold Honda. Her eventful vacation to China and the long flight home wore her out more than she expected. The car is headed south from Charlotte, N.C., where the plane landed, to her bed she longs for in Atlanta, Ga.

Allison, Abby’s friend, who traveled with her to China, is driving the car. The busy highway is filled with speeding, reckless drivers, but Allison is sure to be especially careful because one of her parents sat in the passenger seat and the other beside Abby in the back.

Abby sits and is lulled by the sounds of catching up dancing between the family members. She listens to her friend tell tales of their trip together in the foreign country and her parents, “Ooooh,” “Ahhhh,” and ask never-ending questions in return.

As the car sails along the fast lane of the highway, Allison describes the earthquake to her parents. Abby hears the click, click, click of the turn signal.
Allison tries to get over in the middle lane to let a driver by, but doesn’t notice the Subaru SUV swerving in and out through traffic to her right.

The whole car feels a jerk so strong that Abby thinks she’s back in China’s earthquake.

Allison overcorrects and the car is no longer under her control.

The Honda flies back into the fast lane. Spins completely around. Flips. Tumbles over the interstate. And lands upside-down in the soft grass on the opposite side of the three lanes where the whole adventure began.

Somehow, during the accident, Abby braces herself, preparing her body for a possible thrashing.

When the car came crashing into the unforgiving ground, the window by Abby’s seat shatters. She manages to wiggle through, crawls to the grass, and cries.

“Oh my God, I’m alive. Oh my God, I’m alive,” Abby whimpers.

Quiet. Everything is still.

Through her tears, she can make out that Allison and her parents have both made it out of the car ok and are sitting to her left beside the crumpled car. As she looks around, she is amazed not to see any other vehicles hit, and no one hurt.

Abby can’t push the thoughts away in her mind, contemplating, “What could have happened? I could have died right then.”

As sirens blared in the distance, and people began to crowd, Abby found herself thinking that there was possibly a higher meaning in this. She survived an earthquake a few days ago, and now she had just lived through a possible bone-crushing accident.

“Bad coincidence, good fortune,” She tells herself.

The ambulance screeches to a halt beside the pile of rubble that was once a car. An EMT informs the group they’ll be transported to the hospital to be checked for injuries.

As Abby is lying in the ambulance, tears streaming down her face, she holds Allison’s hand. She’s apologizing over and over, and Abby whispers, “Its ok, accidents happen.”