Ok, so I've never posted a blog before but I have a lot of crazy feelings that I just need to get out right now. I responded to another post regarding how much of an attention whore/hypochondriac her skid is and it just brought this back up to the surface. I've decided to let the past go and move on, so to bring this up to anyone else would be pointless. Just gonna let it all out here! I don't expect a response or anyone to even read it, I just need to get it out.

My daughter (now 14), DH (who was my boyfriend of only 6 mos at the time) and SD14 (was 13 then) went for an ATV excursion at his family's cabin in the mountains here in CO over the 4th of July/DH's birthday weekend last year. We'd been riding ATV's on the mountain trails all day, stopped to refuel and grab lunch and then headed out again.

DH and SD rode together ahead of us since he knew where we were going and DD and I had another machine. DH and SD would get a good distance ahead of us so as not to throw dust in our faces and then they'd stop and let us catch up.

I'd let DD drive as she's driven my SUV plenty and is very capable. We'd been out for about an hour, were a good 45 minutes away from the cabin and tragedy struck. We were on a dirt road (and I use the word "road" lightly, as it merely was a 2-track for jeeps and off-road vehicles) which was cut into the side of a steep mountain, when T (my daughter) hit a rut and lost control of the ATV.

We literally fell over 100ft down the side of this steep mountain, hitting trees, tree trunks, rocks and sliding down brush all the way. The ATV flew over our heads and I lost track of my daughter. I'd never been so scared in my life for her. I blacked out a couple times as I tumbled and a tree stopped me about 125ft down. The ATV continued down another 125 or so feet. When I came to, I looked for my daughter, who had fallen just about 95ft so was above me on the mountain. She was covered in blood, her glasses had torn into her face and broke her nose. She was calm, couldn't see and was saying "Mom, where are you?" I pushed off the tree and realized my right hand was broken. Stumbled toward her telling her I was ok, we're fine, everything would be ok.

I assessed her wounds and made sure she was coherent and made sense. Then I looked up the mountain. There was NO way DH could find us through the thick brush and trees. We had to climb back up to the road. I asked her to stand, felt her legs to be sure she could walk(it was 95 degrees, we were both in shorts and t shirts). I'd lost a shoe and my sunglasses during the fall. I told her I would not leave her, so I'd push her up the mountain as far as I could and we'd hope to make it to the road.

It was steep and I mean STEEP! It felt like forever trying to walk up with pushing her ahead of me. She's 5' 8" and about 145lbs. I'm 5' and 130. My right hand was swollen to about twice its size and was throbbing and bleeding.

I got her about 3' from the road and gave her a final shove to get her back up onto the roadway. She laid down and was breathing heavily. Then I had to try and get myself up. I don't know how I did it, to tell the truth. My knees have patellafemoral syndrome in them and I have a hard time with pain as it is, but I mustered my strength and got onto the road, put T's head in my lap and put pressure on her wound.

Seemed like hours but realized it was only minutes before DH and SD turned around when we didn't show up behind them and started looking for us. I was sitting up on the side of the road, holding T's head in my lap and we both were covered in blood. He saw us from a distance and sped toward us. Asked me if we were ok and that's when SD flipped the fuck out. She started wailing, screaming and running toward us. I had my daughter calm, so she wouldn't go into shock (I have a little medical training) and here comes SD flying toward us acting as if she's on fire. I put my hand up and looked at DH and told him "GET HER THE FUCK AWAY FROM US NOW!" He grabbed her before she could get to us, put her back on their ATV and told her to stay there as he tended to us.

You couldn't see the ATV from the road, and I estimated it to be about 250ft down. DH asked if it landed upside down. Yes, it had. We'd just filled up with fuel and the brush was very dry as it is here in CO. He made his way down the mountain to flip it over and be sure no fuel was leaking, so as not to start a fire we'd never make it out of alive.

I kept holding my daughter, wiping blood from her eyes, making sure she remained calm and breathing and talking to me. She asked if she was going to die there. That broke my heart. I had no idea if she had internal injuries or how severe her head injury was. All I could do was comfort her. Meanwhile, SD sat on their ATV wailing her head off about 30ft away.

DH made it back up after flipping the ATV over and said he was going to go back to the cabin and get his Explorer so he could take us to the hospital. They took off and T and I remained on the side of the road, totally isolated. We hadn't seen one other person at all on that trail, so we knew we were alone until DH returned. I kept brushing the ants off of her legs, putting pressure on her head wound and talking with her to keep her awake.

Almost an hour passed. She asked me if DH would return for us. I had to tell her probably 6 times he was on his way. These trails were difficult to maneuver with ATV's much less a full size SUV. So I knew he'd be going a bit slower. 90 minutes later, he showed up. He picked my daughter up and she felt like she was going to fall backwards down the mountain and panicked. Her eyes were huge, and I can only imagine her fear of falling at that point. We got her loaded into the back seat and I almost threw up getting in to hold her again.

It was a minimum of 60-60 minutes to the hospital from the trail and he was driving as fast as he could, but that caused us to bounce around a LOT. At one point we both flew up and I hit my head on the roof of the Explorer and told him to slow down! We arrived at the ER at 3pm. They immediately took her in and cut her clothes off and started working on assessing her. SD stood in the corner crying, DH was holding me and I was talking with T, letting her know I was right there.

They took her away to MRI/Xray. That is the only time I actually cried. I was so scared they'd find something seriously wrong with her. She's my only child, and I only get to see her a few months out of the year as she lives with her dad in Michigan. I couldn't lose her.

The docs kept asking to look at me, my hand, tend to me, but I wouldn't let anyone touch me until my daughter was in the clear. She returned from MRI and they said she'd suffered a broken nose and would need sutures for her head wound, but everything internally was ok. I immediately rushed to her side and held her hand as the docs tended to her. DH went to the store at that point to buy her some clothes since they cut all of hers off.

ALL of the staff that tended to T asked me how old she was and were shocked to know she was only 13. They said she remained calm, did everything they asked even though she was in extreme pain and was very lucid and responsive. They couldn't believe she wasn't crying, scared, flipping out and freaking at that age after what we'd just been through. I informed them I'd always taught her not to panic, to remain as calm as she could, and the sight of blood never bothered her as I used to take her to work with me and she witnessed a lot of medical procedures (I was a veterinary assistant). They were very impressed by her calm demeanor and commended me on a job well done. Said that the only reason shock hadn't set in was because she remained calm for so long.

We were in the ER for 7 hrs. I finally allowed the docs to tend to me once T was safely drugged up and sleeping. They xrayed my hand and confirmed it was broken, bandaged me up, took a head CT and cleared me. We left the hospital around 10pm and got back to the cabin by midnight. Since the ER got crowded with other injured patients, they did not have time to clean T's wounds and we both were filthy with dirt and debris from falling so I helped her into the shower. That's the only time my 13 yr old daughter cried during this entire trauma. I tried helping her scrub her wounds but the pain meds were wearing off. Her eyes were so swollen she couldn't see. I got her dressed and laid her down and gave her more pain meds and had DH tend to her while I showered.

SD, this entire time, was in DH's face, begging for attention. Yeah, I should've known that she would. She was jealous of T from the day they met and he was showing T and me attention (we NEEDED it!) and she was feeling all left out. I laid down after my shower and just held T as she slept.

When I finally went to bed with DH, I woke up screaming and crying so many times from nightmares, that I ended up waking the girls too. No one really slept well that night, even with pain meds on board.

The next day, DH and I had to meet the wrecker and guide him to the accident site to recover the ATV. SD and T stayed at the cabin, as T did not want to return. She didn't even want ME to go, afraid I might fall again. As we approached the site and the wrecker driver got his cables ready (he had to attach another cable to his existing one, since it only reached 125 ft!) he said "so sorry for your loss" to my DH. DH looked at him like "huh?" and the driver said "well, there WERE fatalities here, correct?" He pointed to me sitting in the Explorer and said "Thank God they both survived". The wrecker driver was amazed and said he couldn't believe we did!

It took 7 days for her eyes to go down from the swelling. She remained black and blue with bruises, cuts, scrapes and wounds all over her body for weeks. Our entire summer together was pretty much ruined. We had tickets to the amusement park and she insisted we go. There's a ride that you have to climb up several flights of stairs to get to. She was fine until we reached the top and that's when the fear of falling set in. She sat on the top stair and closed her eyes and I held her hand and kept her calm. She was completely fine on the ride itself, as heights never bothered her. But our weekend drives in the mountains were all but halted, since she was afraid of being up so high without guard rails.

This accident completely changed the both of us. We both had nightmares for months. Went through therapy and still have very distinct and deep memories of our day on the bottom of the mountain together, bleeding and hurt.

SD limped around the apartment for the entire time, saying she was so hurt. From what? No one knows. She wore her mother's wrist brace and an ace bandage on her knee. Claimed that she was in SO MUCH PAIN. Yeah ok whatever. I saw the fire in my daughter's eyes when she saw SD limping around. If she could've hurt her at that moment, I do believe she would've! Hell, *I* wanted to kick the shit outta her!

Later, during "family" therapy with DH and SD after we'd become engaged and SD was acting out, the therapist asked SD what was the worst memory she'd had thus far. Guess what this attention whore/drama queen sputtered out of her mouth? The ACCIDENT! She'd told the therapist in one of their individual sessions that she was involved in it! That's just one of the many lies we caught her in.

1. She wasn't even there, she didn't see any of it happen!!! They were far ahead of us when it occurred, completely out of sight. 2. She suffered NO injury at all whatsoever. 3. It had NOTHING to do with her. 4. My daughter and I were the only ones who experienced it and were traumatized, this kid was just seeking sympathy and attention and boy did that piss me off! DH set the therapist straight, called SD out on her lies and I left the room I was so angry. I sat out in the Explorer until their session was over and SD wouldn't even look at me when she got in. I was FURIOUS.

So after we'd left and took her back to her mom's, he looked at me and apologized for his daughter's behavior. I told him if she EVER, I meant EVER brought up the accident in my or my daughter's presence again, I'd go off and he wouldn't like it. I was no longer holding back anything and she was going to know it.

T and I celebrated being alive this past July 4, one year after the accident. We went to watch fireworks at the Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium. We rarely talk about the accident and the nightmares have faded. Her scar is 2 1/4 inches from the bridge of her nose up her forehead and it's very apparent. She actually allowed me to touch it and massage it this summer though. Now she embraces it and doesn't cover it with makeup anymore. She said it's her true testament to survival and she bears it proudly.

I can't express how strong and mature my daughter is. She's had a rough life thus far and has come out stronger and more dedicated than I could ever anticipate. She tells me that she'd never have sex at such a young age like SD did. She has more pride in herself and her body. She has more self esteem than SD and of course, is more mature. She continues to make me proud every single day and I miss her like crazy.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this huge novel-esque blog. It felt good to get it out after a year of holding it all in. Sure, I've told my therapist and others about it, but for some reason, putting it all out here feels cathartic.