Rebecca loves life.
Why?
Because she learnt not to take life for granted. She learned the hard way that it can take just sixty seconds to change your life. Sixty seconds to turn one’s life upon its head. Sixty seconds to live an entire lifetime.
And Rebecca wants to share her story so you too can learn the same lessons; except she wants you to learn the easy way.
Here is Rebecca’s story.
The day started normally, nothing out of the ordinary, until she pulled up at a stop sign, just down the road from her child’s school. She was heading out to pick her child up as they had a date at the ice-cream parlour.
A normal day with a touch of excitement. It was her fortieth birthday.
She was busy anticipating the look of excitement on her son’s face, as he pedantically chose his ice-cream flavours, when she pulled up to the stop sign.
As she turned her head, she glimpse movement behind her. Glancing into her rear-view mirror, she made note of the truck that pulled up behind her, patiently waiting its turn at the stop sign.
Aware that she was holding the truck driver up, she cast her eyes back to the road in front of her. A quick glimpse to the left, then over to the right, only to snap her eyes back to her left again; and then she froze in disbelief.
Panic began to build within her chest, terror froze the synopsis within her brain and she could not fathom what it was that she was seeing. Sweat broke upon her brow and began to trickle towards her eyes, but she couldn’t move.
She was frozen in sheer horror, in utter disbelief, in isolating terror.
And in that split second she believed she was destined to die; here, on this very spot, on this given day, her time had come.
Rebecca closed her eyes and prayed, although she had never been a particularly religious woman. However, faced with end of life found her automatically asking for assistance.
As she slowly opened her eyes, hoping beyond all hope that she’d been mistaken, she once again glanced to the left.
Unfortunately, she soon realised there’d been no mistake.
There, on her left, skidding towards her in a total lack of control, was a jack-knifed B-Double Semi Trailer squealing down the road, heading straight towards Rebecca’s car.
Rebecca knew there was nothing she could do, what with the truck behind her and the B-Double screaming towards her intersection, leaving her no time to get across and out of the way.
Within seconds, the B-Double was careening into the front fender of Rebecca’s car, scrunching up her front end like it was made of aluminium — like that of a soft-drink can — ultimately pinning Rebecca between the steering wheel and the back of her seat, crushing her lower body.
All the while, spinning Rebecca’s car into a 360 degree spin, sending her flying metres down the road, to the right of the intersection in which she’d stopped.
All this had taken seconds to occur, seconds to change the life of Rebecca, the B-Double truck driver and the truck driver who’d stopped behind Rebecca at the stop sign, who witnessed the horrific accident.
As soon as Rebecca’s car stopped spinning, the witnessing truck driver was calling Rebecca back from the brink of death, while simultaneously calling emergency services.
Rebecca was fading in and out of consciousness, but the witness kept talking to her and refused to let her fade out permanently. He made her hang on until help could arrive just minutes later. He was her hero.
Thankfully Rebecca lived to tell her story and she’ll explain in great detail, to all who’ll listen, how it is that a random 60 seconds changed her life and made her understand how extremely lucky she was to be alive.
Yes, she may be paralysed from the waist down, with no chance of ever walking again, but she knows that at the end of those devastating 60 seconds, luck was on her side.
We could all learn from Rebecca’s tragic but gratitude filled story. All it takes is 60 seconds to live a lifetime.
Please click the link below my name to read more of my work. I would also like to thank you for taking the time to read this today and for all your support.
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About the Creator
Colleen Millsteed
My first love is poetry — it’s like a desperate need to write, to free up space in my mind, to escape the constant noise in my head. Most of the time the poems write themselves — I’m just the conduit holding the metaphorical pen.
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Comments (2)
It's so sad that she's now wheelchair bound 🥺 Loved your story!
Yes!!! So true about sixty seconds can change a lifetime!!! Superbly written story with a powerful message!!!