It was 11 a.m. on October 8, 2018, when I set out on the 12-mile bike ride home from work along the Connecticut shoreline. The sun was brilliant 1 the blue sky, and the leaves were starting to change colors. It was a(n) 2 time for me.
I love my job as a program manager at Peace Jam. My husband Sean, a mail carrier, was 3 with his work, so I'd made plans with a friend for a long ride later that afternoon.4 I settled into the right-hand lane of a busy avenue, a truck turned in my direction from a side street. He slowed at the corner. But for some reason, he suddenly 5 speed. There is nothing I could do but scream.6, the huge truck knocked me down onto my left side. I felt my leg cracking, but I still 7 my head just enough to see something sticking out from my leg. The skin had been 8 right off most of the lower half of my body. There wasn't any 9 flesh to see. People came rushing from all 10 and aided me. The doctors arrived and rolled my body onto a backboard. I was sent 11 to the emergency room, where, for the next eight hours, I kept dying. During this period, I was in and out of surgery several times. Sometimes I was unconscious, but other times I existed in a 12 that has no easy comparison. What 13 me out of my fear was remembering a speech by Nobel Prize Jody Williams. "Emotion without action is irrelevant".
I thought of all the people who had saved my life. The strangers who ran to my side after the truck hit me; the 14 who brought me back from death more than once; the staff at Gaylord who were 15 to help me walk again and relearn basic tasks. And then there were the strangers who had donated their life-giving blood. Suddenly I felt a need to do something to 16 them. I may not have been able to walk yet, but I 17 organize a cycling tour to raise money for disabled athletes. I 18 raising more than ＄10.000. Then, I turned inward, concentrating on my own recovery.
My injury also made me 19 just how lucky I am. In the darkest moments of being 20 in the coma（昏迷）their voice constantly comforts me. To this day, I am gratitude in motion with each step.
