Only Seconds
Olien, Cheyenne
Grade: 12
School: Kindred High School, Kindred ND Educator: Tanya Neumiller
AWARD: Gold Key
It was a typical hot, windy North Dakota summer day. I had woken up late, which is unusual for me. Rushing to get ready, I threw on the first clothes I could find, grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen, and ran out the door. I hopped into my car and took off down my long driveway, probably going a little too fast, but I didn’t care. I could not be late for work. I was never late and I liked having that reputation. I liked knowing people knew they could count on me to be on time.
Turning out of my driveway, I knew I probably should have waited until the pickup, headed the direction I was going to be going, passed by but I went anyways. Knowing I had to pick up speed as fast as I could before the pickup caught up to me, I pushed the accelerator down a little too much. If you have ever driven on the side of a gravel road, you know that is where all of the loose gravel ends up, making it harder and less safe to speed up. My car started to fishtail, but I have felt that before and I could always correct myself by slowing down a bit. Seeing the bright red cab of a semi coming at me, I knew
I had to stay over to the side and continue to slow down. I thought the semi would get over to his side more. I thought I was far enough over. I thought I was going slow enough. I thought wrong.
The semi ended up being farther towards the middle of the gravel road than I expected. Doing a last minute correction, I jerked my wheel towards the right side of the road to avoid hitting the semi head-on. Of course, this made me start to fishtail even more on the side of the road. I tried to correct myself once again by slowing down, but it was too late. I was heading for the left side ditch and there was nothing I could do to correct it anymore.
