A Terrifying Experience

On September 20, 2008 I had what I would consider the worst day of my life, so far. It was a Saturday afternoon, and my mom was driving me to meet the rest of my pathfinder club on a weekend camp out. They were camping near Sleepy Creek in West Virginia. The camp was about 3-6 miles off a paved road in the middle of the forest. In other words, the middle of no where!

As we were driving on the gravel road, with trees as far as our eyes could see, we suddenly passed a van parked by the side of the road with someone laying outside the car. It kind of looked like this person was taking a nap. But after a few split seconds and it started to sink in, my mom realized that something wasn't right! She backed the car up to take another look at the scene. There was a women who was obviously dead, laying on the ground! (For those of you who don't know me that well, I don't handle things like blood or sickness very well.)

My mom got out of the car, and went over to where she was. She checked for a pulse, and found none, so she immediately called 911. The next hour was like nothing that I have ever experienced before. While the ambulance and police were on their way, the 911 operator had my mom do CPR. My mom handed the phone to me, and for the first time in my life, I was on the phone with 911. It was while my mom was doing CPR, (mouth to nose- because their was too much blood in the woman's mouth) my mom was able to figure out what had happened. As she would blow her air into the woman's nose, it would gurgle out her throat! Obviously, she had been shot!

Now don't forget the surroundings! Here we are, two women in the middle of the forest with a dead women who has been shot. The whole time both my mom and me were praying. Eventually, this man stopped by to see what had happened. Don't forget where we are...two women, one random guy (who was obviously shaken), and a dead women! He acted very nervous the WHOLE time. That made both me and my mom very nervous! While all this was going on, several other people stopped by. One of the passers by, when looking at the body, noticed a gun lying under one of the women's arms.

After what seemed like billions of years, well it was only 20 minutes, the ambulance and first responders came. They were followed by 3 State Troopers. The State Troopers found car keys in the women's pocket and opened her car. Then, the whole story seemed to explain itself. (We never heard the end, so crime investigations may have come to a different conclusion.) In the van was a letter to her friends and family. There was also a receipt from buying the gun earlier that day as well as some target practices. How sad!

I learned some very important lessons that day, and I am sure that I will continue to in years to come. God is always with you, no matter what the circumstances. He may not take them away from you, but he will help you through them! I would have much rather not had to go through that whole traumatizing experience, but God was there, holding my hand through the whole ordeal! My thoughts were confirmed that day too, that I will never go into the medical field! Each day gets better, and I know that God will bring something good out of this sad situation.