Saved by the Belt

My family is one of the lucky ones. We still have what we consider most precious — each other. It is Kathy Hezlep, our superstar, that has saved our family. Sitting at the porch, I am transported to the accident ten years ago.

As a mother, I have been blessed. I have a nice, smart, good-looking son who has given me much pleasure over the years. In the months leading up to Alan’s 16th birthday, there was a lot of excitement about his upcoming rite (仪式)of passage — the driver’s license.

About a month before his birthday, there was an assembly about seat-belt safety presented at his high school. One of the presenters in this program, Kathy Hezlep, had lost her son in a horrible car crash the year before. When Kathy was first asked to speak at this assembly, she was reluctant. Her son’s death had been extremely hard on her. She often felt helpless and discouraged, and she wasn’t sure how she could make a difference by speaking with this group.

But the school had convinced her to talk to the students. Kathy spoke about how hard it had been since the loss of her son. There were days when it was an effort just to get out of bed. She spoke directly from her heart and my son took her words straight into his heart. I remember Alan coming home that day and the two of us talking about the crash. We thought it was interesting that she was a single mother(like me)and that her son, Ryan, was her only child(like Alan).

Well, the big day finally arrived. The state of Florida, in its infinite wisdom, granted my “ child ” a license to take a loaded weapon and drive it! At the time, I thought the worst feeling I could possibly experience was watching my only child drive off alone in my car. I was wrong.

Alan had his license one week when the police called me that Alan had an accident with his friends.

When I rushed to the hospital, I talked to Alan about the accident.

The dramatic incident occurred during an afternoon hike. Four friends and teammates from Northwest College in Cody , Wyoming, had been hiking in the Montana national forest. As they hiked, a bear suddenly attacked the closest hiker Brady Lowry. “It shook me around and I didn't know what to do,” Brady recalled the terrifying attack. The bear shook him by the arm and then threw him away.

Brady's friend, Kendall Cummings, reacted quickly to try to scare the bear away. He yelled and kicked at the bear and pulled on the bear's fur. “I didn't want to lose my friend,” said Kendall.“I could have run and potentially lost a friend but I didn't do that. I thought I would get him off and save him.”

The bear turned its attention to Kendall and knocked him to the ground. In protecting his friend, Kendall became the target of the bear's forceful attack. Eventually, the other teammates scared the bear enough so that it soon withdrew and ran off.

After the attack, Kendall was badly injured, but he managed to pull himself up. The teammates then helped Kendall off the mountain by supporting his weight and carrying him part of the way. Once the boys reached a location with cell service, they dialed 911 for help.

After half an hour, some rescuers arrived at the scene. They examined Kendall and Brady and they were sent to Billings Clinic Hospital in a rush for their injuries. Brady broke his arm and suffered serious wounds in the initial attack. Kendall underwent surgery for more serious injuries on his face and arm. Both boys were on the road to recovery. Their wrestling coach, Jim Zeigler, arrived at the hospital along with the rest of the team to offer support.

One of my most memorable trips took place during the summer vacation about three years ago, when my sister, my aunt and I took a trip to Spain because we were moving. On the day of the trip, I lay in bed thinking about my friends whom I was going to leave behind and thoughts were flooding in.

When we arrived at the hire station, we seemed to have some problems with our luggage because it was too much for a taxi, so we had to book a van (厢式送货车) to take our luggage to the airport. We waited for a long period to find a perfect van that would fit our luggage.

Before leaving, I felt very bad because I was going to a different country and was going to miss all my friends and family. I was not comfortable and cried.

The journey was almost perfect at the beginning, but soon it began to rain. Because of the rain, the drivers could not see far away, which caused a huge traffic jam. I was sitting by the window with a can of Coke that I had bought in the store earlier. My aunt and sister fell asleep, and during this time. I felt bored and thought about other things that bothered me. My eyes turned to the mountain in front of us.

A bus suddenly appeared in the picture. It was very close to us. Cars sped past us without any speed limit. Beside me was a very deep lake: I wondered to myself what if something or someone fell inside it. Suddenly, a bus in front of our van stopped, and because it was raining heavily and the van was going fast, no one could see what was going to happen. Then, bang, we bumped into each other. Our van overturned, but luckily, it didn’t fall into the lake. People came to help us get out of the van because we were blocked and the driver was half-dead.

We struggled to get out of the van and everything we had was gone.

I was losing a lot of blood and then the emergency aid came.