By Hayden Garrett
Opening your eyes to see yourself heading straight for a giant rock blocking an almost 200-foot drop sounds like the perfect script for a nightmare or a heartbreaking movie, but instead it was reality for junior Kali Evans.
Students getting their license is a universal high school experience that many teens eagerly wait for, but behind the excitement is the danger that comes with being a new driver.
Over the summer Kali had developed a disciplined routine, waking up at 5 a.m. to work her morning shift at the Muncie Family YMCA gym. After her shift that day Kali had plans to see her boyfriend.
Kali hadn’t seen her boyfriend for a while so she decided to ask her dad for extra time with him. Her dad agreed.
When it was time for Kali to drive home she noticed how tired she was, so she decided to roll down her window to stay awake.
After a while Kali got cold and rolled up her window and turned on her heat. Her new strategy to stay up was playing songs by the artist Kevin Gates.
“Because who can fall asleep to Kevin Gates?” Kali said.
Kali was using the cruise control feature on her car and had fixed her seat to help the pain in her back.
“Next thing I know I’m waking up to all these sensors going off in my car. My wheel was shaking, all my screens were saying brake and emergency brake, and in a half a second span I wake up and see I’m heading straight for a giant rock,” Kali said. “And in that moment I realized I fell asleep behind the wheel and I was just like, ‘I’m going to die.’”
Kali was driving home through Winchester when she hit a rock blocking a 200 foot deep stone quarry.
Kali was knocked unconscious from impact for three minutes. During these three minutes the car had begun to catch on fire.
Kali’s boyfriend luckily checked Life 360 which isn’t something he would usually do but this act might have saved Kali’s life.
When her boyfriend realized she wrecked he began to blow up her phone with text messages and phone calls. This woke her up along with the smell of smoke that had become overwhelming and led to Kali climbing out of the car.
Almost as soon as Kali was out of the car the gas can erupted and the car was engulfed in flames.
Kali made it out of the wreck with a three-inch scar on her leg and nothing but a melted piece of metal as a car.
Although Kali wasn’t seriously injured the car that was now destroyed was her mother’s car that was passed down to Kali after her mother’s passing.
Kali was a part of the lucky few who make it out almost completely untouched after a wreck. Senior Baylee Knebel was amongst the more common crew who suffered an injury after her crash.
Three days after Baylee got her first car she decided she would go tanning at her grandma’s home. It was July 1 last summer and she had only had her license for a week.
Baylee, enjoying the car ride, wanted to take a longer route.
“Then I just thought I’d take the country road home, The worst decision of my life,” Baylee said.
The road ahead of her had fresh grass clippings on it from someone mowing their lawn and failing to sweep the remaining grass off the road.
The grass clippings made the tires lose traction which led to her losing control of her car.
Her car hit a guard rail on the side of the road. This made Baylee’s car go airborne and go on top of the rail.
Baylee’s injuries consisted of a concussion and a chipped mandible (lower jaw). Although these injuries are serious and cause immense amounts of pain, Baylee’s biggest heartbreak from the wreck was the sunglasses she had on her head that had broken in the wreck.
Sophomore Shaelyn Davis’s first car lasted a little longer than Bayles’s, but she still only got one month of freedom before her accident.
Shaelyn’s wreck was similar to Baylee’s with Shaelyn also losing traction due to road conditions.
Shaelyn was driving to pick up her boyfriend before school on Jan. 21. It was a two-hour delay because of the bad roads so it was 11:10 a.m. when she was driving to her boyfriend’s house.
She was going around a curve when her front tires hit a patch of ice and lost traction. As soon as Shaelyn thought she regained control her back tires hit the same patch of ice and she could no longer control her car.
Her car went off the road where it first hit a mai box that started to slow her down but not enough to stop her. The car’s momentum continued until it hit a culvert. This sent her car 10 feet into the air and it flipped three times. landing on the driver’s side when it hit the ground.
Shaelyn’s door was now crushed, not allowing her to get out so she was stuck waiting for more assistance.
People who lived around her wreck site brought her tissues and passed them through the broken sun roof to help clean up Shaelyn’s now bloody nose and busted lip.
Soon after, school resources officer Matt Medaris arrived at the site where he broke Shaelyn’s sun roof the rest of the way and helped her climb out.
Now when Shaelyn’s on the road she doesn’t just fear reckless drivers or any of the more common anxieties. Instead, Shaelyn’s biggest fear is curves.
Senior Braxton Stine’s fears of driving don’t come with anything he can prevent. Instead he sits at stoplights anxiously waiting for the unlikely chance a car may hit him again.
“She wasn’t paying attention, so she smacked in the back of me,” Braxton said.
Braxton was sitting at a stoplight waiting for his turn to go. An elderly woman rammed into the back of his truck going 40 miles per hour.
Braxton, feeling no injuries, rushed out of his truck to check on the woman whose car was now bumper to headlight with his truck. When he got to her window her air bag had deployed.
Braxton began to worry seeing her laying in her air bag as the woman began to suffocate.
Another man that had seen the wreck along with Braxton helped the woman out of the car where she began to cough and try to recover.
The man waited with Braxton for the cops to arrive where they explained what had happened and made sure the officer knew Braxton was not at fault.
Braxton himself was fine but his truck was totaled. The woman that was in the wreck went to the hospital after the crash where she stayed for three days before passing away.
Her passing wasn’t necessarily due to her injuries from the wreck but her age and prior health issues were big factors.
“I didn’t really want to drive for a little bit,” Braxton said. “I was scared to hurt somebody else on the road, even though it wasn’t my fault.”
