Two headlights are coming straight at me. I blink.

I blink again. My vision is blurry. I try to comprehend what just happened.

I remember thinking, “What the heck is this person doing?” And then afterwards, “I need to find my phone to call the police.”

The airbag, the impact, all of it happened almost instantaneously. I didn’t have time to beep or brake or reminisce about my life.

Sometimes you hear about people saying they saw their lives flash before their eyes or they saw some white light that was supposed to be the gates of heaven or something, but neither of those things happened to me. The only light I saw was the headlights coming at me as the car hit me.

I was in complete and utter shock. It was terrifying to be in a car accident. For the next couple days, after anyone hugged me, I would instantly tear up.

I am driving home after another late night working on the newspaper. It has been a long day, and all I want to do is go home and sleep. I stop at the light just at the entrance of JC. My blinker is on to turn left onto Route 22. My light turns green, so I start to make the left.

Then I’m blinking. My left cheek feels hot like someone just smacked me. Then I see the airbag. All my airbags on the driver’s side have deployed.

I don’t remember the impact. I remember staring at the light change from green to yellow. I was double-checking that my light was actually green. That this was not my fault.

After realizing my glasses have been knocked off by the airbag, I scramble to look for them. I turn on the overhead light. The light is still on when I say goodbye to my truck the next day at the towing place.

As I am bending over to pick up my glasses from the floor, my passenger side door opens. A woman immediately asks me if I was okay then shortly after she tells me she already called the police. I can’t open my driver’s side door so she helps me into the passenger seat. I sit there. I find my phone.

I call my dad, but he doesn’t answer. I call my mom, but she doesn’t answer either.  Both my parents are out of town for work, and they are in different states. When I finally spoke to my parents on the phone later that night, my mom was crying.

I call my neighbor, whom I am staying with while my parents are out of town, and she answers after the first couple rings. I explain to her what happened, and she says she’ll be there right away.

Later, she told me she thought I was just calling to say I’d be late for dinner, not that I got into a car accident.

I could already hear the sirens coming closer. About five different police officers arrive at the scene along with the ambulance. I remember just sitting there in the passenger seat, staring at the flashing lights from on top of the police car, trying to get my pulse to slow down.

I am watching all the traffic lull to halt, thinking “I’m sorry I have kept you from getting home to all your families.”

Then I am having a mini panic attack, because I doubt myself just for a couple seconds. I’m not sure if my light was green. I’m not sure if this was my fault.

But it wasn’t my fault. I’m not the 84-year-old lady who ran the red light.

The police officers all ask me what happened, if I am okay, if I need to go to the hospital, if someone is coming to pick me up, if I was the one driving, if they could see my license and insurance card.

They are saying I am lucky. I am lucky I was driving a truck. I am lucky I wasn’t majorly injured.

My neighbor came then, just as a police officer was giving me the report and explaining where my car was going to be towed to. I get out and take my bookbag out of my back seat.

We are walking back to my neighbor’s car. We are right at the entrance of JC in the middle of the road when she hugs me. I collapse into her arms and start bawling my eyes out.

My truck is towed and totaled. Rest in peace, Peter Pilot. Thank you for keeping me safe.

Sydney Setree is the Print Chief for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.