The Sound of Death

Glass Shattering

July 8, 2003 my life changed forever. I was 11 years old when I had a freak accident that you would never even think about happening to someone, yourself especially. I remember the day like it was yesterday and I probably always will. Fourteen years ago and I still have moments reoccurring in my mind of the incident, dreams.. flashbacks. All because of a shattered glass door.

You are probably wondering what happened. How can shattered glass take a life?

On a beautiful afternoon, my brother and I were taking a nice swim in our pool of the house we were renting. We lived in New Smyrna, Florida right across from the beach. And it was wonderful.. All up until this day. I got out of the pool to dry off, went close to the sliding glass door when I fell. I fell backwards and fell right through un-tempered glass. I will talk a little more about tempered vs. un-tempered glass later. But un-tempered glass is not legal anymore and I am one of the reasons why.

I fell through the glass and landed on the ground. The moments of falling, I changed. My body and my life changed, right in those split seconds. I landed with my right thigh almost cut off, my hand gashed open with no blood coming out. I remember that was one of the first things I noticed. I noticed this huge extremely deep cut in my right hand that was somehow not bleeding. Which then led my focus as I was in extreme shock from the state I was in to my lower half. I saw my leg completely torn open. Everything was visible, all the muscles, the bone. The glass cut my leg to the bone, and the most shocking part cut my femoral artery. I was laying in a pool of my own blood. I then realized I was going to die. I started yelling, screeching for help.

Angels

I have always said that angels saved me that day. Some angels from above, and two down here on earth. From the moment I fell my dad knowing about prior knowledge of what to do when you have a severed limb, jumped down and held my leg together as my mom ran and called for 911.

Not a couple minutes later I remember looking up and seeing a man walk through my door with a kit and he immediately gets on the phone for an air flight. He was not in the ambulance, he was our neighbor that at the time we did not know. What happened was his son had heard an explosion and ran into our house, while seeing all the blood and myself he ran to get his father which was a retired paramedic. He had connections and called for the life flight to come and air lift me to Halifax hospital about a 20-30 minute drive away. Everyone knew I did not have that long, I lost 3/4ths of my blood.

Two angels saved me that day, the paramedic that was our neighbor for calling the helicopter and my father for holding my leg together, they are both the reason I am here today writing this blog. 

I remember going in and out in the life flight helicopter, I was losing a lot of blood, I had probably lost the maximum amount of blood just before death.

I had a team of 7 doctors waiting for me when I arrived at the hospital. They pieced me back together and saved my life. I was the talk of the hospital that day. Everyone knew about my injury and what happened and I wish the world could have known so people could fix their glass and my accident could never occur again for anyone else.

My story is a long one, one I will continue to post about. But for today this will be the end of the start of a long journey I went through starting from the moment the sound of death happened, the sound I will never forget, the glass shattering, the screaming.

Live a Beautiful Life

Due to my injury I look at life differently. I live my life on the edge, maybe a little closer to the edge than my parents would like. But I choose not to have fears, to live as if tomorrow or today could be my last day on earth because on July 8, 2003 it almost was. God showed me I have more of a purpose here living on my life, so I plan on living it beautifully.

Please follow my blog if you want to hear more about my story :)

Thank you for the read.