Three days ago, I was driving home from the summer camp I’ve worked at for the past five years. I was about ten minutes from home, and I was stopped at a red light. I remember looking in my rearview mirror, and seeing a truck heading right at me, with no signs of slowing down. I was told later that he was going at least forty-five miles per hour. I knew I was about to get hit. Then suddenly I was screaming, my hands still clutching the wheel. The truck had slammed into my car, pushing us forward into the intersection and spinning us 180 degrees. When Penny finally came to a stop, I didn’t realize how bad the damage was. I did realize, however, that I was in the middle of the intersection, and I attempted to push the gas and get out of the way of any cars that needed to get through. But after pushing the gas pedal a few times, I realized that my car wasn’t going anywhere. Without knowing what else to do, I turned on my emergency lights. Then, I heard a woman’s voice ask if anyone had called 911. Her voice was crystal clear, not muffled, the way it was supposed to sound. It was then that I realized my back windshield was broken. With some hesitation, I turned my head to see the complete damage that had been done. The entire back of my car was smashed in. I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly I realized my seatbelt was still on, and was holding me incredibly securely. I attempted to sit forward, and still, the seatbelt would not budge. I finally unbuckled it so that I could attempt to get some air into my lungs, but the terror and shock caused me to begin to hyperventilate. I started to cry as I searched frantically for my phone.
Strangers began to walk up to me, and I was able to open my door. One woman called my parents for me, while I cried with my head on the steering wheel, and another stranger patted my back and told me that it was going to be okay, that the worst was over. After the woman got off the phone with my parents, she tried to calm me down. “What hurts?” she asked. “Nothing, nothing…” I muttered through tears, “…but my car…my car…” The woman told me that my car could be replaced, but my life could not. She told me I should be thankful to be alive. I nodded, trying to understand the situation. I put my head back on the steering wheel and ran my hand along the dashboard, crying and saying her name over and over again, “Penny Lane, Penny Lane, Penny Lane…I’m so sorry…Penny Lane…”
I was lying in the hospital bed when my dad told me that Penny was totaled. I asked him what that meant, hoping for a different answer than what I knew it meant. But he told me exactly what I didn’t want to hear - it meant that she couldn’t be fixed. I began to cry hysterically, wailing her name, and one of the doctors had to come in to make sure that I was okay. And thankfully, I was okay. My neck was a little sore, but other than that, all of my tests and scans came back normal. I managed to walk away from the accident with no more than a scratch on my leg where the seat belt buckle was. I shudder to think what could have happened had I been in a different car. Penny Lane knew exactly what she was doing, and did everything she was supposed to do to keep me safe and alive.
Penny Lane died so that I could live, and I will never, ever forget her.
Thank you, Volkswagen, for saving my life.
