Plenty of times, I have covered wrecks and written stories about them. While it saddens me to see anything like this happen, those wrecks never had the same impact on me as one that happened last Thursday night.

This particular wreck happened in Calera, and it involved my sister and her family. They were involved in a head-on collision less than a mile from their house. I was actually covering a football game when I got the call that no one wants to get. All I could think of the rest of night was getting up there to see them at UAB Hospital, and I eventually did after I got my responsibilities completed here.

Obviously since the wreck, everything has changed. I haven’t spent very much time here. I know what eating places are right around the hospital. Yesterday was really the first time I have been in Clanton since Saturday night. I am glad that the Labor Day holiday wound up being this past weekend because that allowed me to go.

I’ve always known that wrecks like these are always hard on the family, but I just didn’t know how hard they were until I had to experience it myself. It is difficult sitting in the emergency waiting room in the middle of the night just waiting long enough to go back and see your sister and brother-in-law just for a few minutes.

I’m glad that there were so many friends and family there, and they have all helped out so much. Anyone from the next-door neighbor to the bystander that rode in the ambulance with my almost 2-year-old nephew, there have just been so much people who have helped. We just can’t express our gratitude through the process.

By having this happen in my life, it will forever change the way I think when I go to the scene of a wreck. I’ve never tried to get a bloody body in a wreck, and I never will. Bad things like this can happen to anyone, and I never hope that anyone will have to go through something like this.