Too Close At 70... By Aaron Cabaniss

Aaron Cabaniss

September 27, 2013

Final writing essay copy

Too close at 70…

It was the spring break of 2011. My fellow chorus classmates and I were eager to go enjoy the fun rides and everything that goes along with Disney World. All of us arrived at the school pretty early in order to drive the whole day down toward Orlando, FL. It was a very long ride indeed.

The first day in Disney we decided to venture trough MGM Studios, now renamed Hollywood Studios. There we rode rides like the tower of terror and the rockin’ roller coaster based off of the band Aerosmith. We all enjoyed singing in the Festival Disney competition as well.

There were several things that were out of place though. Such things included our bus driver running over a stop sign and saying: “I thought I ran over a cone.” Other events included him almost side swiping a car on the parkway on the way to Magic Kingdom. These foreshadowing events led to an unfortunate event.

After our trip in Disney we started back to our school parking lot to meet our parents. However, before arriving a horrible event happened.

We were on I-75 north going toward Atlanta when a minivan swerved and spun out of control, crashed into the median, and flipped in the air; everyone was killed. This was all a slow-motion movie-like traumatic scene. The car then came into our lane and caused us to swerve off the road, on to the grass, and crash into the side of an overpass of a bridge going across the interstate. I probably blacked out for a minute or two, I don’t remember. When I came to I could hear everyone screaming, crying, and yelling “Becca! Becca!” Apparently our classmate Becca had left her feet up on the railing of the bus while lying down before the crash and had gone straight through the windshield. She was then airlifted to a hospital near by.

I immediately called my parents to alert them of what had happened. I assured them I was okay. They then called the newscast to ask about any news of a crash outside of Atlanta, but the newscasts had not heard of any such thing. Fox 5 then came out to visit my parents at home and interview them about what they had heard.

All of us who hadn’t had too many injuries were taken out of the damaged bus and onto the bridge where we were checked out by local volunteer firemen. Those who had no sorts of injuries minus a couple of scrapes and bruises were taken to the Dooly county sheriff’s detention center where the community took care of us all.

            After arriving home with each of our parents, we took a cooling down period. This was a great thing to do since everyone on that bus had had a near death experience. I thanked my family for saying a prayer for me as they learned about my experience via my phone call. I have never been so scared in my life. We later learned that the family in the minivan following too closely caused the wreck. That’s why you do not follow close behind anyone when driving, especially at 70 miles per hour.