My mom, dad, brother and I were sitting in the car on the way to Las Vegas. We were all talking about what we were going to do when we got there. I was excited about it even though we have gone more than once every summer. I could tell everyone else was also excited about it.

Once we got close to a rest area, my dad asked if anybody needed to stop. My brother said yes so we stopped. My mom and I went into the women's restroom, and my dad and brother went into the men's restroom. My mom and I got done first so we went out to the car and waited for my dad and brother. Suddenly we saw Charlie, my brother, running out from the restroom shouting soemthing at us. I didn't hear, but my mom did. He yelled that dad fell, so my mom and I ran up the sandy hill to the restroom.

When I saw him I screamed. There was a big puddle of blood on the floor. It was coming out through his ear because he broke his eardrum. My mom is a nurse so she sat by him doing all that she could.

My mom yelled at me and my brother to go to the car phone and dial 911. We both ran down the hill, sinking and tripping, to the car. We got into the car and tried to turn on the car phone. It wouldn't work, so my brother and I were panicked and crying. A couple of ladies came to us and asked what was wrong. We told them the story and they called 911 from their cell phone. Later we learned that the car had to be on for the phone to work.

A big crowd started to form around the restroom. People didn't know what was going on. Some people were comforting me because I was crying. I didn't know what was happening. I was just walking around on the sidewalk crying. Twelve minutes later the ambulance came. They put some kinds of medical instruments on my dad. Then they put him into the ambulance. My mother, brother and I got into the car and followed the ambulance to the hospital leaving the wondering crowd behind. We drove for about twenty minutes to the hospital in Gallup.

We went inside and the nurse said we could see him a little later. We sat in the waiting room waiting. Finally, the nurse came to us and said we could see him. He was weak, but he could talk to us. My mom was talking to a doctor. They thought my dad should be taken to the hospital in Albuquerque since it had better equipment for his condition which was 160 miles away.

My mom, brother and I drove to the hospital while my dad flew in a helicopter. We got there about two hours later. We went into the hospital to look for my dad. When we found him, we talked to each other. The doctor came in and told us places to go around the town so we could do stuff as we wouldn't worry as much. We went out to eat and to arcades. I never had fun playing at the arcades because of my dad's condition. Then we checked into a hotel, and I think it was called the Green Vine.

We went to visit my dad at the hospital every day he was there. The doctor said he fell because he was dizzy from driving too long at a time. He drove ten hours the day that he fell. He fell on his head so a certain part cracked. Now he can't smell because he hit that nerve, and he might have gone blind.

One week after he got to the hospital, he finally got released. He was very tired from everything so he was sleeping most of the way home. My brother and I had to be quiet in the car. When we got home, my dad had to rest a lot and we had to be very quiet to not bother him.

On this day he is doing very well. The doctors said there was a possibility it would come back but he still can't smell and it's been around five or six years. He is back to his normal self, doing everything he used to do. It took him a while to recover. I forget how long since it's been so long since it happened. Now it is a faint memory in my mind, and this story is all I have to remember it. I used to have a much longer story that described every little thing in detail that happened on those days, but I lost it somewhere.