The Accident That Convinced Me Angels Are Real
A true short story
I rode my bike on a sunny summer day at nine years old. I left my mom and sister’s side to head down the hill for a quick ride to the park and back. Crossing the street, I checked both ways. There were no pedestrians or cars in sight. Halfway across, suddenly there you were, a young twenty-something girl, going 90 in a 60.
I froze, my brain doing a quick calculation. Fight, flight or freeze—my brain chose freeze. So I blacked out and woke up a number of minutes later, 20 feet away. My bike and shoes were splayed in different directions, half to a dozen feet away. My bike tire was horribly bent. My helmet, disturbingly, had one big, long crack right down the middle.
As I came to, you were running at me, crying. All I knew was something bad had happened. My leg felt strange and floppy, but not broken. You picked me up and carried me to the sidewalk—something you probably shouldn’t have done. But I understand that you were young and in a panic.
I cried out for mom, who was now running down the hill. She’d heard the screeching tires and knew. Mother’s always just know, don’t they?
A man came out from his home on the corner and offered to drive my mom and I to the hospital. We lived around the block so she asked that he bring us there instead and my dad would take us to the hospital. Upon dropping us off, we thanked him and then he drove off in his truck. My dad drove my mom and I to the hospital.
I wore a cast that summer, hobbled on crutches, managed the painful road burn on my skin. Overall I was grateful—it could have been so much worse. The only lasting pain was some nerve damage in my leg, which I still have to this day.
Had I not worn a helmet, it’s likely that I would no longer be here today. The crack in my helmet would have been in my skull.
But the craziest part was, we never saw that man again. My mom went back to thank him—he didn’t live there. The homeowner had no idea who he could have been.
It was that day that convinced me angels are real,