Evan Wortman, Period 8, 5/11/21, Day C

 Evan Wortman 

Period 8

5/10/2021

Day C

Blog # 3

What a coincidence

    It was a Thursday afternoon and Joe was really in need of some food as his fridge was completely empty. He decided that he would go to Costco to buy all of his food in bulk quantities so that he would not have to go back anytime soon. However, Joe had one very large dilemma, he had no way of getting from his house to Costco or in that matter any food store. The truth is that although Joe was a twenty six year old man living on his own at the time, he never passed his road test and thus does not have a license. Joe decided that this was a sign or some sort of message that it was long past time that he obtained his driver's license. He realized that he was now in desperate need of two things and although they may have seemed very unrelated at the time, were very much correlated. In order for Joe to be able to satisfy his hunger he had to first pass his road test thus leaving him with a driver's license and a way to get to Costco. 

    Joe understood that what he was trying to do would not in any way be an easy thing. While for most getting their driver’s license was a coming of passage, for Joe it was something that he had waited far too long to do. He was very nervous because he had not driven a car since he took driver’s education at sixteen years old which was almost ten years ago. The first thing that he needed to do was to take a six hour course on the basics of driving. Sitting through that course did not give him any hope whatsoever because all it did was remind him of how bad a driver he was. However, he was determined to obtain his driver’s license and determination in a human is a rare thing.

    After a few minutes of searching for different sites online, Joe booked his road test for the next morning. He went to sleep full of anxiety as he was completely unsure of himself for his test which was only a night's sleep away. Joe barely got any sleep that night and when the time came for his test he was extremely tired. He borrowed his sister’s car for the road test and arrived at the site right on time. His tester was a middle aged man with an unusually long mustache which for some reason scared Joe even more. As Joe started driving he relaxed and realized that this might be easier than he expected. However, everything changed when the instructor told him to make a left turn after a stop sign.

    Joe’s test was going exceptionally well especially considering that he had not driven for so long before this test. Things seemed too good to be true and Joe started to relax, but that was all too soon. Once the instructor told Joe to make a left turn at the next intersection which also had a stop sign, he made his first and only mistake which was forgetting to stop at the stop sign. What came next was a series of loud noises, coming from the crashing of two cars and the deployment of the airbags. As Joe tried to turn left without stopping at the stop sign, the car that was driving straight and thus the car which had the right of way drove straight into Joe. 

    The moments after the accident were very intense for Joe. Luckily, he was not hurt in any way, but all he could think about was that this was his fault. He had tried to take a road test knowing full well that he was a terrible driver. He was terrified that if someone got hurt it would weigh on his conscious for the rest of his life. The first thing he did was make sure that his instructor was alright and not hurt, and to Joe’s relief the instructor was fine. Joe wanted to also make sure that the driver of the other car was alright but to his dismay the accident had jammed the car door and it seemed like for the moment he was stuck. He called the police and at that moment all he could do was wait and hope that he did not hurt anyone. 

    The time that Joe spent waiting for the police to arrive was excruciating. He not only could not assess the damage that he did to his sister’s car but he was also unable to make sure that he did not hurt anybody. When the police finally arrived and helped Joe get out of the wrecked car, the first thing that he did was run over to the other car to see what had happened to those inside. He got to the other car and to his surprise there was nobody inside. The police informed him that there had only been a single person inside the car. A young girl around the same age as Joe was driving to get food for herself when they got into the accident. The reason that she was no longer on the scene of the accident, the police told Joe, was because she had suffered some pretty serious injuries during the accident. 

    After hearing that, Joe was devastated. He had sent someone to the hospital with serious injuries all because he was reckless and forgot to stop at the stop sign. Joe was paralyzed with guilt and remorse. He no longer felt comfortable doing anything, not until the girl that he had sent to the hospital was better, at least not until then. Not only did he fail his road test and completely wreck his sister’s car, but he had also hurt somebody really badly and that was tearing him up inside. Joe was sent to the hospital just to make sure that he did not have any injuries. After he was cleared, he went to find the girl whom he had hit to make sure that she was alright. 

    He got out of his bed in the hospital to go begin his search for the girl whom he had injured. While walking through the hallways he could not stop himself from thinking about the worst case scenarios which included fatally injuring this poor innocent girl. When he arrived at the girls hospital room he saw her unconscious in a bed with her family surrounding her. Joe didn’t know what to say as he was conflicted if he was only making sure she was okay for him to feel better or because it was the right thing to do. He decided that no matter the reason he was doing it, that he needed to go see her and make sure that she was going to be alright. 

    As soon as Joe walked into the hospital room, the girl’s entire family literally gave him the death stare. He needed to keep going though, he knew that he could not turn back now. Joe started off by apologizing to the family in the most sincere way that he could. He was truly sorry and he really hoped that her family would understand that. He never had any intention of hurting anyone and now he had done just that. The girl’s family told Joe that her name was Chloe and that she was in a coma and on life support. 

    Joe was now truly destroyed, as he had possibly killed an innocent girl with his reckless driving. He could not do anything until she woke up and he was literally stuck in her hospital room for weeks. His hope every morning and his dream every night was that Chloe would wake up and be alright. That however never happened and as years passed Chloe’s family decided that it was time to take her off life support for good. Joe was devastated because he knew that this would seal the deal, that he would truly be a killer. After Chloe’s funeral Joe made a vow that he would become an advocate for safer driving, with a lot more restrictions and precautions in place to prevent accidents like this from ever happening again.