Scary Day

          It was a cold December morning in South Florida and my husband and I, along with several friends decided to ride our motorcycles in a toy run to gather toys and gifts for needy children for Christmas. We rode about an hour to get to the starting location.
          If I had to estimate how many motorcycles were involved in the toy run that day, I would have to say around 300. There were police officers directing traffic at the starting location becasue there were so many motorcycles.
          We rode to the designated bars or restaurants to pick up their donated toys. Some of the establishments were having raffles and donated the money they had collected as well. The toy run turned out quite well and the riders collected over a thousand toys and gifts and as well as $1347.00 in cash for the needy children in South Florida. These unfortunate children were going to have a great Christmas, thanks to the overwhelming turnout of riders that day.
          It had been a long day already and we had decided it was time to head home. So my husband and myself, and our friends started on our one hour ride back home. We were only about fifteen minutes into our ride when the mini-van in front of us decided to slam on brakes, causing my husband to swerve towards the right shoulder. The only thing is, the van also decided to swerve to the right which caused the left front end of our motorcycle to collide with the right rear end of the mini-van.
          I was airborne. All I could think about was "tuck and roll." When I landed, I was hurting but I was alive. All of a sudden I heard my husband screaming my name. "Darlene, where are you?" Just as I yelled back and started to get up to go to him, one of our friends was at my side and telling me not to move. Rick, my husband, kept trying to call out to me and I realized that even though I couldn't see him, I knew that there was something seriously wrong with him. He was having difficulty breathing.
         An ambulance arrived and strapped me to a stretcher. They did the same with Rick. They put us both in the same ambulance. We were able to finally able to talk to each other but with neck braces on each of us, we still could not see each other. Rick was in so much pain. I could tell by his voice. As the ambulance drove us to the hospital, Rick and I were holding hands.
All of a sudden everything changed.
          The attendant in the ambulance called on her radio for a helicopter. "He's crashing," she said. We were no longer holding hands. I just knew he was going to die. I still could not see him, although he was laying right next to me. Within two or three minutes I could hear the helicopter. The attendant told me not to worry. "Yeah, right!"
          The ambulance slowed down and came to a stop. I could hear police officers outside. I asked what was going on and the attendant told me, "They had to stop traffic on Interstate 75 to let the helicopter land to pick up your husband." As they pulled Rick's stretcher out of the ambulance, we told each other we loved each other as if it were the last time we would see each other.
          It wasn't until I arrived at the hospital that I found out that they had taken Rick to another hospital. I was so upset because no one would tell me anything about where he was or how he was doing. They had taken me back to get x-rays of my wrist, which was broken. When I got back to the ER a nurse said she had found out where he was but had no information on his condition.
         By the time I was ready to be released, the nurse had explained to the other hospital what had happened to us and how we got separated. They had tried everything to calm me down, including medication, none of them worked. I wasn't going to relax until I knew if Rick was going to be okay or even if he was alive.
         Finally, the phone rang and it was the other hospital. Rick was going to make it. He was injured pretty bad having gone through the windshield and handlebars of our motorcycle. He had a broken collarbone, a broken breastbone, eight broken ribs, a badly bruised thigh, and a punctured lung. He was lucky to be alive.
         After several months of recuperating, we hesitantly got back on our fixed motorcycle. It was a little scary at first, but the thought of being able to sit behind my husband and ride again was well worth being a little scared at first.