Big Boy Scars
Written by R. Trevett in March of 2018 and edited by his teacher (used with permission from student)

There’s a good day planned today. What could possibly go wrong? Down comes the glass that shattered my leg and basketball season.

It’s a nice, sunny day in Milbank, SD, in 2016. My cousin, friend, and I have all decided to go outside since we have been in the house all morning. We have a can of silly string being used for enjoyment. We take it outside with us and throw it in the air trying to blow it up.

Unfortunately, the silly string can does not blow up, so we go into the big old tractor shed with cemented ground. We all throw the can in the air and let it land to try and make it explode. Well, it is my turn to throw it and it becomes one of the dumbest decisions I’ve ever made. I throw it up and the can hits a long three-foot light bulb, which comes crashing down. I can’t help but watch it come down feeling as if it is happening in slow motion.

All of a sudden, I look down and I see about two deep cuts of glass in my leg with a little sliver cut off like a piece a cheese getting cut from a knife. Believe it or not, I don’t feel any pain at all. I have an adrenaline rush, and I honestly feel as if I could jump off a cliff and survive. I try walking on it as blood seems to be gushing out like a stream with each step. “Carter, go tell your dad to call my mom!” I yelled. 

In a time period of approximately three minutes, my mom pulls up with the red Toyota type of car. On the ride over to the old clinic, which is about four blocks away, I begin to lose my adrenaline and become borderline passed out. I arrive at the clinic. In the emergency room they almost instantly start sanitizing my leg with an orange liquid from a syringe. It is more painful than the cut itself. I start crying bloody murder. It isn’t even the fact the stitches hurt or anything; it is because that day I was to start my first game in the Hamlin League for basketball that year.

Well, it was all ruined because of the stitches. My decisions were dumb and I’m still maturing. To this day, I wonder why I stood and watched the light fall instead of running. For that action, I now suffer the consequence.