it only takes a second

Every year the third graders in every elementary school across the city of Mustang have Land Run Day! The students are encouraged to dress up in period clothing, they pack their lunches in metal lunch pails and they bring covered wagons to reenact the Land Run at school. Ashtyn was paired up with another boy from his class. Ash volunteered to bring the covered wagon while the other student was assigned to bring ground stakes, rope and a blanket so that he and Ashtyn could stake their plot of land and eat lunch picnic style. We pulled together the cutest outfit for Ash to wear complete with rope belt and red bandana, packed Ashtyn's lunch in his metal pale (which wasn't very "period accurate" as he will only eat nacho lunchables and yogurt...) and sent him back in time!

I was excited to volunteer for Ashtyn's Land Run! I was assigned a game station where I directed the students in playing "Drop the Hanky", an old fashioned version of Duck Duck Goose. There were also stations where the kids got to play "Hop Skip Jump", have gunny sack races and even one station where everyone got to churn their own butter! When I saw the horse drawn wagon I was really impressed! The teachers did a great job of making Land Run Day memorable and exciting!

Ashtyn's teacher, Mrs. Harper, looked awesome for Land Run Day! She definitely dressed the part!

Before the signal was given for the Land Run to begin the teachers had designated "Sooners" to take off from the starting line ahead of time. It was really neat and so true to life! Once the Sooners had ran ahead of the waiting students attempting to stake the best claim against the rules another group of students designated as "Sheriffs" ran after the Sooners and arrested them, bringing them back to the starting line.

Once all of the Sooners were rounded up and back in line a teacher gave the starting signal and the race was on! There were stakes scattered all across the field next to the school each with a Deed attached that the students had to take the Claims Office to claim their land. Unfortunately, Ash wasn't fast enough (or was maybe a bit too picky) and by the time he looked up all of the stakes were claimed. I asked a nearby teacher and she said there should have been enough for every group and that someone must have claimed more than one plot. Uh oh! So, making the best of it, we blazed our own trail and found a nice plot of land to stake our claim. Sure we didn't have a Deed to turn in but we loved our land anyway!

Ashtyn and his buddy placed their stakes, attached their rope and then set up lunch! We ate on our little blanket and discussed our favorite moments from the day so far. After we were done eating the boys got creative and decided to push each other down a nearby hill in their covered wagon! I guess even in the old western days out on the great plains of Oklahoma boys were still boys!

As fun as Land Run Day was our fun filled morning turned into tragedy that afternoon. All of the kids had finished lunch, packed up their wagons and gone back into the school for a bathroom break. Minutes later the kids came back out of the school ready for another hour or so of game playing and butter churning. I was at my "Drop the Hanky" station playing with groups of kids and the horse drawn wagon rides were in full swing. We were almost to the end of the day, in fact even a lot of the kids were ready for Land Run day to be over, when something happened that has not stopped replaying in my mind since. 

My game station was set up just along a paved road that runs behind the school and connects to the street in front. This is the paved path that the horses trotted along pulling kids and teachers on wagon rides all day long. As the horses went past my station, for almost the last time, something spooked one of the horses. Ashtyn later told me, and several other students confirmed, that a piece of equipment used to attach the wagon to the horses came loose and clanked onto the paved road below scaring the horse. As the first horse got scared he stopped moving forward and began almost trotting in place lifting his front legs high into the air over and over. He was rearing his head back and forth neighing loudly. (I don't know proper terms for horses so you'll have to bear with me as I do my best to explain what happened that afternoon.) 

The spooked horse and the noises he was making obviously drew all of our attention. It seemed to happen in slow motion and fast forward all at once. Almost as quickly as the first horse got spooked, his actions (or maybe something else?) spooked the second horse. He too began mimicking the reaction of the first horse. Now both horses were neighing, stomping and tugging at each other trying to move in different directions. The old man driving the wagon immediately began pulling back on the reigns and yelling commands at the horses in a deep, loud voice. It didn't help. As both horses reacted to whatever spooked them the students and teachers both in the wagon and out began to get scared. Kids started screaming and some started running. I can only imagine that this only spooked the horses more. 

In another second the horses took of RUNNING! I mean FULL! SPEED! GALLOPING! The man steering did his best to try and stop them. I have a snapshot image stuck in my mind of him pulling back so hard on the reigns that he was almost laying completely backwards. Again, it didn't work. From my vantage point I could see the students and teachers in the wagon holding on for dear life. They were gripping the sides of the wooden wagon. Teachers were putting their arms over students to keep them in their seats. At the very same time, the students at my game station and all the stations around me began to panic. Kids were screaming, kids were crying, some kids ran toward the school and others began running away. I had no idea what to do. I was trying my best to think of what to say or what to do but nothing was coming to me. It's like my mind wouldn't work fast enough. I felt like I couldn't breath. I just began yelling for all the kids around me to "SIT DOWN!" I wasn't trying to yell AT them I was just trying to be heard OVER them. They were screaming so loud. They were crying so loud. The only thing I could think was to have them sit! I didn't want kids to run too far away and I definitely didn't want to lose any kids under my care so I just kept telling them to sit. No one was listening. 

Thankfully in what was probably only an instant but felt like minutes later a teacher came running past me from behind yelling at me to send all the students inside. As she ran past she yelled for me to "Tell all the kids to go inside! It doesn't matter which classroom! Just tell them to go inside and we will sort everyone out later!" I, of course, took her advice and began directing kids into the building. Some went into the doors leading to the third grade hallway and some went into the doors leading into the second grade hallway. At that point I didn't care where they went as long as they were inside and safe. As I corralled sobbing little girls and stunned little boys into the school I looked up in time to see the wagon full of students and teachers pulled by the horses into a sharp right turn into the grassy field off of the paved road. The turn the horses took was too drastic for the tall wooden wagon to handle and in a split second the wagon tipped over, spilling all its passengers onto the ground. 

The wooden wagon literally shattered (exploded almost) into pieces all over the ground. Now I REALLY couldn't breathe. My heart stopped. The students who were still outside began to run toward the wagon. Even in a state of shock and not being able to think I knew that this wasn't a good idea. I ran after the straggling students and sent them into the school. Then I ran toward the broken wagon. It was almost eery as I approached the scene. It was quiet. All I could hear was quiet crying. Some screaming but mostly quiet crying. A few uninjured teachers had reached the accident site before me and were comforting the students and teachers who were most injured. I didn't know what to do. I looked back and forth frantically, breathing hard trying to decide where I might be able to help. 

To my left a little boy was bleeding profusely from the head. I had no idea if his injuries were serious but another teacher was already sitting with him. To my right the driver of the wagon laid on his back, not moving. A woman was sitting by his side trying to talk to him. In front of me, scattered probably 30 feet across were all of the wagon's passengers. Some kids were sitting up, others were laying on their backs, some were on their stomachs. Teachers were telling the kids not to move, not to get up and to wait for the paramedics to arrive. One teacher standing in front of me was on the phone with 911 sobbing while she tried to get help to these kids as quickly as possible. 

I took a step forward, not really sure where I was going, when a woman on the ground to my left said "Can you sit with her?" and pointed to a little girl sitting alone in the middle of the chaotic scene sniffling and crying to herself. Other students were screaming out in pain but this little girl was calm. She was just staring into the distance quietly crying. I sat next to her and rubbed her back. I asked her questions to keep her talking. I didn't know what else to do. I asked her her name. I asked her who her teacher was. I even asked her if I could pick the grass out of her hair. We talked about pointless things. She kept crying but she was calm. 

The little girl laying on her stomach to my left was hysterical. I will never ever forget hearing her cries. She was sobbing. A teacher sitting with her wouldn't let her get up or move because we didn't know the extent of her injuries. This poor girl broke my heart. She could hardly catch her breath but when she did and was able to say something she just screamed for her mom. She wanted her mommy to come so badly. The teacher with her assured her that her mom was on her way. She told the little girl over and over that the school was calling her mom and she would be there any minute. The girl would cry some more and then, looking around frantically, would ask how everyone else was doing. She wanted to know if her teacher was okay. She wanted to know if the driver was okay. Then she would begin screaming for her mommy again. She looked up at one point and talking to the teacher next to her said "Is this real life? Tell me this isn't happening!" It was heartbreaking. 

Within a matter of minutes the first responders were on the scene. Firemen and policemen and paramedics. They were so great with the kids. They went from child to child, kneeling down to their level and asking them "what hurt?" assessing who needed help the most. As more and more first responders arrived and more and more teachers and parents began to show up I was able to go into the school, find Ashtyn (who was scared when I left him at the school doors before running to the accident scene) and help calm the students who were inside. When I got to Ashtyn's classroom his poor teacher was trying to calm TWO third grade classes worth of kids jam packed into her ONE classroom. She had turned on a movie and was doing her best to control the situation. There were still students crying and most of them were asking unanswerable questions. One girl approached Mrs. Harper and asked if she could go see the school counselor but had to be told she couldn't because the counselor was outside with the injured students. I sat with several girls and rubbed their backs while they cried doing my best to calm them down and let them know that everything was going to be okay. 

Soon parents began arriving. As you can imagine they were frantic not knowing if their child was on the wagon or not until they pulled up to the school. Media is definitely a double edged sword. There were news helicopters circling the site of the overturned wagon before any first responders arrived and before the school could even collect injured student's names so they could call parents. So, parents were seeing "Breaking News" updates on TV and receiving "Alert" messages on their phones telling them their was an "incident" at the elementary school but not having any idea what it was or who was effected. In today's world that is a very scary thing! Parents were checking in at the office at a frantic pace and running (literally running!) to their child's classroom to make sure their kid was okay. Mom's were hugging their babies and then taking them to the office to check them out for the day. The office was a made house. Parents coming in, parents and students going out, injured students who had been cleared by the first responders as not needing an ambulance ride but needing their parents called waiting in the nurses station. The office phone was ringing off the hook, with two woman answering as fast as they could, to answer parents and news questions. The women in that office were so calm under immense pressure and did an amazing job! 

I stayed in Ashtyn's classroom for awhile before a woman came over the school intercom and said that if you were an adult who was outside during the accident that they needed you to go back outside to fill out an incident report for the police department. I walked back down the hallway, toward the outside doors, honestly not wanting to see again the scene I had already left. As I walked through the outside doors of the school I passed a mom who was standing on the sidewalk yelling at her husband at the top of her lungs! She was obviously angry! She was using curse words and proclaiming how "stupid it was for the school to think this was a good idea..." I later found out that her child wasn't even in the wagon but before even learning that I kind of wanted to stop and give her a piece of my mind. Here you have a chaotic scene with small children who are injured and traumatized and you think it's helpful to raise your voice and cuss at people? I'll never understand. I passed the irate lady and headed toward the back of the school. As I approached I was met by a member of the paramedic team who was monitoring who could get close to the now cordoned off accident scene. I told her I was there to give my statement and she directed me toward a member of the Mustang Police Department. He gave me a piece of paper and a pen and asked me to write down everything I had seen and done that afternoon and then sign the paper. I did as he asked and turned in my statement. 

As I walked back toward the school with the intention of checking my boys out of school and going home for the day I saw one of the injured teachers being strapped to a body board and loaded into an ambulance. A day that started out as so fun had ended in a way I could have never imagined. As I got into my van and shut the door drowning out the sounds of what was going on next to me I burst into tears. The adrenaline had worn off and the full weight of what had happened hit me like a ton of bricks. I pulled out my phone and saw that Brandon had texted me a ton of times asking what was going on. He had seen the news reports and the helicopters overhead but didn't know if we were okay.

In the next couple days I learned that all of the teachers and students that were in the wagon when it toppled over would fully recover. There were several concussions, some broken bones and lots of cuts, bumps and bruises but all in all everyone was okay. I believe the worst injured was a young teacher. Even knowing everyone would make a full recovery, as I put Ashtyn to bed that night I couldn't help but take a second look at my baby boy and feel grateful for his life and for his safety. Thankfully there were no life threatening injuries during the 2014 Centennial Elementary Land Run but you just never know when life is going to take an unexpected turn. This was most definitely one of my most terrifying days in recent memory. If not ever! I was so glad I was there and didn't have to receive a call from the school or see a news update on the TV telling me something tragic had happened at my son's school. Knowing what the situation was was terrifying enough! I know that in life we will always get comfortable and we will always find ourselves taking things for granted at times but this day will forever serve as a reminder to me that life is fleeting and precious. I'll never be perfect at it and there will always be days I find myself freaking out or fretting over things that don't really matter but the sight of that shattered wagon, the sound of that poor little girl screaming for her mommy and the simple act of picking grass out of a little girl's hair as she told me her favorite color will always remind me to not sweat the small stuff.