It was a warm summer morning in may and my friend Shelby and I had decided to ride our bikes to buffalo di Vermont, the farm where my dad worked and where my horse was kept.

The ride there took about an hour ad a half for it was 6 miles to get there.

I had just turned 13 years old a week before and it had been an amazing slumber party the night of my birthday. Everything in my life was perfect, just perfect.

I had woken up that terrible of my accident, with a weird feeling on queeziness and I felt as if I was dreaming. I had been ignoring the feeling all day though and was just focusing on having fun with my friend Shelby.

And so we rode on to the farm. I had just gotten my horse as a birthday present and all my friends, especially Shelby, wanted to meet him.

We arrived at the farm very tired but our veins full of adrenaline. The ride there had been amazing. At 13 years old, we had just ridden 6 miles through the mountain all alone and at our age, this seemed like a great feat.

When Echo, my horse, saw me, he became jumpy and excited. I dismounted my bike and ran over to him.

“hey baby! How are you doing?”, I asked with love while gentli caressing his neck, “oh I’m sorry,”, I started to say when I saw he thought I was there to ride. “I’m not here to ride you today. I only came to feed you and so my friend Shelby could meet you.”

Shelby walked over cautiously for she had never been this close to a horse. Echo suddenly became very shy when he saw her and started to make the attempt to hide behind me. The attempt was impossible for I was a young, small 13 year old girl and he was a horse, young but still very big.

I laughed and for some reason, my laughter seemed to echo in my ears and it felt like I was just watching a movie. It was as if I was watching myself there with echo and Shelby. I felt so weird that day. But, again, I just ignored the feeling.

Shelby and I fed echo and we got ready to leave for it was getting late.

When Echo saw we were leaving he became very angry suddenly and I mounted my bike laughing and was trying to leave but he kept getting in my way.

Finally, after much effort of getting around my horse, Shelby and I managed to leave. The feeling I had been having all day became so intense at that moment. I remember suddenly going so cold and all the sounds around me echoed in my head. Everything, the feeling of time and space, became so slow. It was so creepy.

The minutes passed like ablur and I remember nothing from the ride back except the moment when I fell.

We reached the huge magnificent hill that was our marking that we had one more mile to ride. We decided to walk to the top of the hill for riding our nikes up would be too much of a strain for we were so tired.

When we reached the top, I mounted my bike again and started to ride down the hill. Oh My gosh! We were going so fast! I quickly turned my head to see how Shelby was doing but, I didn’t see her. I remembered Shelby had asthma. What if she had had an asthma attack on the way up? She had been quiet the whole way. Shelby was never quiet.

“Shelby! Where are you?!”, I screamed out and waited a few seconds for a response but, there was none. I knew I had to stop. At that thought, that weird feeling seemed to erupt in me and everything was so slow. It felt like a dream. No, more like one of those nightmares where you get chased by someone and you don’t know where you are or where they are. Time slowed and I saw myself in slow motion push down on the brake. Then I realized, it was the front brake.

“Ahhhhh!”, I screamed as I felt myself being thrown through the air. I hit the ground with a thud and started to slide down the hill on my face. I flung my arms aimslessly trying to grab anything, anything at all, to stop myself. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t feel anything. Then I heard a loud “CRACK!” and in the same instant felt such horrid pain curse through my head and down my body. This is the worst pain I had ever felt.

I felt a warm trickle of what must have been blood, running down the side of my face. My heart was beating so fast. I was so confused.

In opened my mouth to scream out to Shelby or anyone who could hear me. But, when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a gurgle of blood and flem. It choked me and I wanted to cough but suddenly couldn’t breathe. I gasped for air and my body went wild trying to get the air I needed.

Suddenly, everything went black.

Where am i? what am I wearing? This ws the first thing I asked myself as I opened my eyes. I found myself in a bleach white room with the being of some machine in the background.

I could hear myself breathing but, it sounded like a weeze. I moved eyes around the room to scan for anyone but found no soul there with me.

I saw I had a tube sticking out my throat, more tubes through my nose, and my arms were a spider web of wires pumping funny coloured liquid into me.

I tried to sit up but became dizzy so gave up on that. I didn’t know what all these tubes and wires were so I decided I didn’t want them.

I ripped out first all the wires in my arms. It hurt so bad. It felt like my arms were being bitten endlessly by an army of red ants.

Then, I ripped out the tube from my throat but, when I did this I couldn’t breathe. I started weezing not finding my breathe and I heard alarms go off.

A nurse rushed in and when she saw me, she turned whiter than the walls in that room and yelled out, “DOCTOR!’

She came to me and petruded that hideous, plastic tube into my throat again. I felt her fingers prying here and there and before I knew it, I had all the gadgets attached to me again.

The doctor came in and a shocked look overcame his face. “can you talk? Can you understand what I’m saying?”, he asked me.

I nodded my head yes but that nod hurt every muscle in my body. It felt like a million knives had been punched through my skin when I moved my head. I tried to talk but found I couldn’t findmy voice and, why couldn’t I feel my tongue? I looked at the doctor in despair with tears in my eyes. I was suddenly so scared.

The next few minutes were a blur of doctors coming in and out accompanied by nurses carrying needles and bottles.

After what felt like hours, I saw my mom, my sister, my brother, and my dad come in. My mom came running to me and exclaimed, “OH SOFIA!” she burst into tears and I became even more confused and scared.

I will be honest with you, after this, that horrible summer is a blur of images. All I remember are some glampses here and there of surgeries, therapies, faces of nurses and doctors, long white halls with beds lining the walls but, nothing else.

What happened was that when I feel from my bike, I cracked my head and while sliding down that hill, I managed to rip my nose almost off, I broke my chin into over 10 pieces. All in all, I was in a comma for 20 days. I was supposed to die the first night in the hospital but, I survived. The doctors though I may never be able to walk or talk again but, I proved them wrong yet again.

I found my helmet I was wearing the day of my accident. It was covered in my blood and cracked in many places. At the sight of my blood, I almost fainted. I had an avalanche of flashbacks and I found myself crying.

I am 15 years old now. I cant believe it has already been 2 years since that day. As I write this, I feel cold again and I can’t believe all this happened to little 13 year old me.

I learned that nothing is impossible, don’t give up and you can achieve anything.

I am back again. I haven’t ridden a bike since but, I am ok. I can walk, I can talk, and I am very happy.

That blue, helmet with flowers printed all over saved my life.