When I was just entering 6th grade I was a little crazy, I loved to do dangerous things. I wasn’t afraid of heights and I hadn't had the experience of breaking a bone or being in an accident in that sort of way. I was a 12-year-old boy who liked adventure and dangerous activities. That year, I was very excited about playing soccer because I hadn't played the sport since 5th grade. I had bought new soccer shoes in the summer just for 6th grade soccer. At that time, my friends and I were a little immature and loved to play outside and jump off tall buildings. I normally wasn’t afraid, but this one day changed my whole life forever.

It was a hot, sunny Friday afternoon, it was the third day of school and my friends and I decided that we should go to a house and hang out. This house was a beautiful, modern looking house with stunning, green grass and it had a big tree in the middle of the yard. There was also a big playhouse that was great to play in. We decided that it would be fun to jump off the playhouse, and have a little more fun. Five of my friends were there, one of them had red curly hair as blood, and lots of freckles scattering his face, another friend had freckles but had brown curly hair, and the others were all the same: brown hair the color of mud, and brown eyes the color of chocolate. All my friends were wearing shorts, and short t-shirts. We were all having loads of fun jumping. Unfortunately, one of those times, I jumped off the playhouse and instead of putting my feet first, I put my hands first and landed on them. When I did this, my right elbow dislocated. My first reaction was to grab my arm and move away from the playhouse, at that moment I hadn’t seen my elbow but I was in real pain. Then when I saw my elbow I started to panic and  all of my friends started to freak out. My friend called his mom so that someone could take me to the hospital, and she came running quickly. One of them came with me to the hospital, and while we were on the way I began to sweat and tremble a lot. I started to feel dizzy and my friend’s mom gave me a candy that tasted bitter. After I ate the candy, I felt a little better but I started to feel dehydrated because the piece of candy was too dry and it dried out my mouth. My friend was there at my side trying to make me feel better by telling me,

“You’ll be OK,” trying to comfort me, but my arm just felt like it was completely ripped apart.

Finally we got to the hospital, and quickly nurses got me in a wheelchair and took me to the emergency room. The nurses placed a weird blue cast around my arm to help pull my arm up in place. After they placed the blue looking cast, I calmed down and I rested in the wheelchair. About 10 minutes later my mom and my father arrived at the hospital and with their mouths open they greeted me and got a little mad with me.

“What have you done!!”

“Your arm looks terrible!” They cried.  My friend and my friend’s mom went back to their house and I was left alone with my mom, dad, and the nurses. After about 10 minutes, one nurse took me to the x-ray room so that they could take x-rays of my elbow. When I was in the x-ray room, and the nurse took my cast away, I saw my arm again and started to tremble and sweat again. I was sweating and trembling so bad, that I was about to pass out, and I needed water. I told the nurses and rapidly they brought me some water. I drank the water very fast and I asked for another, but they said no because nobody can drink or eat 7 hours before they get an operation due to anaesthesia. The nurses took x-rays of my elbow and then I went back to the room where my mom was.

I was about 6 hours in that room and meanwhile the doctor came and they decided how the operation was going to go. My friends called me and asked all sorts of questions like
“Are you OK?,”
“What happened?” and all sorts of questions like that. All that time I felt great, my elbow was not hurting that much, and it felt brand new. My friends were not the only ones who called em that afternoon, my grandmother also called me. I could hear her nervous voice through the phone, I knew that she was very nervous for what had happened to me. I tried to calm her down by telling her that I was OK, and that nothing really bad happened to me. The hours passed and I stayed there talking to my mom and dad, just around 9 pm in the night I began to yawn, and I could see that my parents were beginning to yawn too. Then 30 minutes later  the time came to start the surgery. Nurses brought a bed so that I could be transported to the operation room without having to walk. The whole way to the operation room I had a big smile on. When I got to the room, the doctors put anesthesia and that was the last thing I remember. Suddenly I woke up in a different room with a white cast in my right arm. My mom was there waiting for me to wake up, and after about an hour we left the hospital and arrived at my house.

This story is worth telling, because for me it was one of the worst things I ever experience physically. This is an important experience because it is something that changed my life probably forever, because this memory will live in my mind forever and ever. At the end of that day I realized a very important lesson: don’t jump off tall places just for fun. This affected me because one it made me learn a lesson and two it made me afraid of heights.