An NHS student will forever be in pain because of one horrifying accident.

On a snowy night in November, 2015, a girl and her dad are driving back from a long night patrolling the ski hills at Nordic Mountain.

Upon entering the car, she peeks at the green illuminated clock before falling asleep.

The next thing she knew, her dad screams and she feels her body being thrown across the car, like the tiny ball in a pinball machine, as the car smashes into the barrier of the highway.

Everything

goes

white.

White to her left and white to her right, as the car spins in circles, like a child spins his brand new top on Christmas morning.

Then a faint light appears, slowly becoming stronger and stronger. She thinks: “Maybe this is the light my cousin talked about before passing away two years ago.”

Rather, it was the lights of a rapidly approaching truck, which in these blizzard-like conditions is unable to see her car. She re-evaluates and focuses on the end. “How are we ever gonna get out of this alive?”

Her dad frantically shifts gears, and the truck barely misses them.

They sit on the shoulder of the highway, breathing heavily and reflecting. They sit so quiet that she swears she could hear snowflakes slowly land upon the windshield.

She sits wide awake the rest of the way home. The intense amount of pain in her neck prevents her from turning her head, nor sleeping.

She ends up with a concussion, off-centering her collarbone, and pulling numerous muscles and tendons in her neck. Luckily, her dad suffers minor bruising.

He learns that life turns on a dime.  His struggle is knowing the pain his daughter suffers, and the way the accident redirects life and is the source of pain.