Rebirth
When I woke up to my alarm on March 8th, 2022, I struggled to get out of bed. My room felt so cold, but my bed was protecting me with its warmth and comfort. Still, I managed to gather enough willpower to climb out of my personal oasis and get ready for school. By the time I walked downstairs, my brother was eating breakfast and waiting for me.
My brother was in a particularly good morning, which never failed to improve my mood as well. When my mom walked into the kitchen to make herself breakfast, my brother was in the middle of a very odd Scooby-Doo impression. After a few snide remarks, my brother and I walked out and began to scrape the ice off our respective cars. He, being over a foot taller and having a much nicer car, finished clearing his windshield first. He drove off a few minutes before I did.
I only had my license for about three months at this point but was very used to the drive from my house to school. My brother and I carpooled when we could, but he usually worked right after school and didn’t have time to drop my sister and me off at home. March 8th was one of those days.
We only lived five minutes from the school, so by the time I left our house, my brother was already pulling into the school parking lot. I took my usual route, but when I turned onto the main stretch of road, I saw something unusual. A girl was walking her comparatively large dog on the sidewalk right to my right. Before I knew it, I was nearing the girl and her dog and saw a man in a truck headed towards me, but he was looking out his side window. I quickly realized he was obviously distracted and going far too fast to stop safely at the intersection we were both approaching.
The girl and her dog were nearing the intersection just a few dozen feet ahead of me when a crack in the sidewalk caught the edge of her shoe and caused her to trip. Subsequently, she stuck her arms out in front of her to catch herself, letting going of her dog’s leash. The dog quickly leapt across the intersection, where it caught the attention of the man in the truck. But the man was still rapidly approaching the intersection. As if he snapped back into reality, the man’s sat up straight, his eyes widened, and he slammed on his breaks.
The dog only made it halfway across the street before the truck struck him. I immediately pulled over to help the girl and her dog, wondering what I could have done to save them from the accident in the first place. The girl brushed herself off quickly and ran over to her dog. The truck had slowed down significantly before the impact, but not enough. The dog lay lifeless in the middle of the road.
I reached the dog only seconds after the girl, who was hysterically crying and screaming “Murphy! Please! Wake up!” I held back my own tears and gently rubbed the dog’s head and chest in my own attempt to wake him up. After several seconds, I realized nothing was working and felt for a pulse, but there was nothing. I worked as a lifeguard the summer prior but never had to use most of my training. Besides, I had no idea if anything from my human CPR training would translate to a dog. But I had to try.
I started what I hoped was the equivalent of CPR for a dog. Fortunately, I had seen a Tik Tok of a man performing CPR on a dog that had passed out while on a walk with its owner, but that was months ago. I remembered how the man in the video positioned the dog on its side and began compressing the side of its chest, so I did the same. At this point a crowd had formed, but the only eyes I felt pinned to me were those of the girl. I desperately tried to save him for over three minutes before stepping back. I feared that I was only making things worse and tried to comfort the girl. As she was crying in my arms, she suddenly gasped and spun around. Her dog, which I came to know as Murphy, was still laying in the road, but he had lifted his head, and his eyes were darting around the crowd. When he saw his owner running towards him, he slowly stood.
After a dramatic yet heartwarming reunion, I started walking back towards my car. I opened my door and started to sit down when I heard barking behind me. Murphy and his owner, who introduced herself as Ingrid, were running towards me. Murphy smothered me with kisses while Ingrid told me their story. Murphy had been her dog since she was three. They grew up together and she couldn’t bear to see their story end so horribly. Ingrid thanked me profusely and gave me her phone number before running off to find her family. I drove off an hour late to school, having learned more about life than I ever could in class.
To this day, Ingrid and I meet up a few times a year and text constantly. I even videochat with her and Murphy once a week. We joke that we are basically sisters at this point. I find it strange to be grateful for something so traumatic and that could have ended so differently, but I am. The most important friendship of my life was born out of a near tragedy.
