16 years old. I’m at home and my parents and little sister leave to go to the store. They drive my moms car. We live in a rural area, about 30 mins to the store. 

House phone rings and a very ‘professional’ sounding man asks for me by name and then tells me he’s a doctor at our local hospital and my parents have been in a car crash. This was back when unpublished home phone numbers were a thing. So we had a private number. 

It was all sort of a blur after that. I grabbed the keys to my Dad’s little Ford Ranger truck and I left the house and headed into town to the hospital. 

As I’m reaching city limits, I see a car coming and as it passes by me I realize it’s my parents. I turn around and head back home. 

As I pull into the driveway they are getting ready to fuss at me for being out in my dads truck without permission until they see I’m clearly distraught. I explained to them what happened, although I’m pretty sure they didn’t fully believe me.