The accident occurred while driving home from Los Angeles on May 17th, 3 days after my UNLV graduation. Tyler and I had taken my car on a road trip to L.A. to go see my friend Jon perform at The Magic Castle. Overall, the trip was short, but we had a great time with my brother and his wife Kelley. I was able to fit into my senior prom dress, so I was all dressed up and ready to hit the town.

We needed to head back and so we left in the early afternoon on the 17th. After stopping in Barstow for lunch, Tyler decided to drive the rest of the way home. Right outside of Vegas, my car kept slipping from 5th gear into neutral for no apparent reason (it had never done that before). After this happened 3-4x in a span of 15 minutes, I was convinced we should just go straight home. After the problem subsided, we decided to stop anyways and check out some video games at our favorite over-sized (and occasionally over-priced) electronics store.
After staying there for awhile, and buying things we didn't need, Tyler was pooped and so I drove us the rest of the way home. While merging onto the highway, I had to get over two lanes to get to where I needed to be, in order to hit my exit which was two down. While in this lane, still trying to accelerate to hit highway speed, the cars in front of me decided to slow down rather rapidly.

I hit my brakes and knew I couldn't stop in time. I glanced into my left mirror and saw no one was next to me and swerved into the middle lane. My foot was glued to the brake pedal as the car began to fishtail and swerve out of control. Looking back, I know I should have taken my foot off the brake, but in the moment, my brain just told me to stop the car and everything would be fine. So I swerved to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right, and again to the left and this is when the impact happened. My front left quarter panel hit the right front panel of a blue truck. My brain still tells me the vehicle was white, but apparently it was blue. The car spun out, and came to a rest facing south on an east-bound highway. The car, as you can see, stopped just out of the left lane on the shoulder, so luckily no one else could hit us into a ricochet.
This picture was taken at the salvage place that stored my car. My car was considered and "obvious total" due to the fact that the damage would cost more to fix than the car was worth. This picture was taken about 9 days after the accident, the first time I had seen the car since that day. I must say these pictures hurt to look at. Tyler was fine, no injuries, no soreness, nothing... it's as if he dreamt the whole thing. I had hit my head on my window, and luckily the airbags didn't deploy causing other possible injuries. A few days later, my back was so tense that I went and sat for 3 hrs to see a doctor. I had no visible signs of a concussion and was prescribed pain relievers and muscle relaxants.
Needing a mode of transportation, I went car shopping a few days ago with my parents. Test driving these cars was kind of unnerving because it was the first time I had been on the road behind the wheel. I fell in love with the third car I saw... a 2005 Dodge Neon.

Now, my parents were kind of surprised when I wanted another Neon, but I told them, that I wanted my car back. I guess this is the next stage in that transition. My old one was one phase of my life and this was supposed to be the next one in my life. I will now be paying this off for $300 a month for the next five years, and I need another job desperately, but I love it. I wanted to get a car, that I WANTED, not just because it was in the price range.
So here I am, starting the next chapter of my life, trying to overcome my obstacles and look at the positive of life. I am getting better, and moving on, but I will never forget the scary experience that I had that day. Luckily no one was injured (including the other vehicle), and there was full coverage on my car...

I know that I am very lucky that everyone was okay, and that no one was killed. The accident was my fault, but it wasn't because I was being reckless, but I did the best I could, given the circumstances. I guess someone was watching over me that day... I am very lucky.