Remember That Time: I survived a car crash… and got open-mouth pashed in the ER?

This is a true story.

I left my sweet sixteen behind and rolled into seventeen with scandalous confidence and one mission: get my driver’s licence. The local instructor was notorious for failing people on their first go, and for me, failure wasn’t an option.

Enter my new superpower: charm. Okay, flirting. Why not? I pulled on my best red turtleneck, flared jeans, slicked back my ponytail, and practiced a giggle in the mirror. I was ready.

The driving itself? Less superpower, more super-shambles. Three-point turn: I spun the wheel like a deranged Wheel of Fortune contestant. Reverse park: I left a gap wide enough to keep the taxi industry alive for a decade. Kangaroo-hopping at the lights, stalling on side streets – a full comedy routine.

But somehow, charm triumphed. “Congratulations,” my instructor said. “Now go get that yellow car.”

I didn’t get the yellow one. I got a white Ford Laser hatchback. And seven weeks later, on a sunny December weekend before Christmas, I stalled pulling onto a highway.

Dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. The smell of fear filled the cabin. To my right – a red ute towing a caravan, coming straight at my door.

I twisted the key. Nothing. Again. Nothing. My heart thumped in my throat. This was it. I’m going to die in a Ford Laser.

I braced.

Impact. Screech. Metal folding like paper. Glass exploding into my hair. Then blackout.

When I came to, there were sirens. Voices. The smell of petrol. My reflection in a cracked mirror: blood smeared, eyes wide. My teeth – oh god, my teeth. I’d only just had my braces off. I swept my tongue across my gums – intact. Crisis averted.

The driver’s door was wrapped around me like a steel hug. Search and rescue covered me in plastic, smashed the windscreen, and fired up the jaws of life. Sparks flew as they peeled the wreckage away. The sound of the shears biting metal still rattles in my head.

I was wheeled into the ambulance, neck brace locked tight, morphine burning its way into my arm. Sirens screamed as we tore down the highway, Christmas traffic pulling over in waves.

At the ER, I was rushed into a bay. My family appeared at the door, faces collapsing when they saw me. I later learned they thought my face had been shredded. The look of relief when a nurse gently wiped the blood and glass away – just a small cut in my hairline – is burned into my memory.

The real damage: an ankle gouge that looked like it had been carved with an ice-cream scoop. Torn ligaments in my back. Nerve damage. A fractured pelvis.

“Young lady,” the doctor had said, “you’re lucky to be alive.”

And then – as if things weren’t surreal enough – my boyfriend’s stepdad arrived. With a giant bunch of flowers. With a burnt CD of photos he’d taken of the accident site. And then, as I lay there concussed and unable to move my legs, he leaned in and gave me the biggest open-mouth kiss I couldn’t dodge.

I froze. Teenage me thought the “polite” thing was to accept it (Note to self: teach Lark better).

By nightfall, I was discharged so I could go home for Christmas. Wheeled out into the waiting room, just in time to see myself on the local news. There I was: mangled car, carnage everywhere, all the emergency crews swarming, me being loaded into an ambulance.

And that’s the day I learned: with great charm comes great responsibility. Wield it wisely – or else you’ll end up with someone’s dad’s mouth on your mouth and your disaster on the nightly news.