“Cats are definitely not the only ones with nine lives. I’ve had a lot of close calls, most of them when I was young.

When I was probably just three years old, I was crawling around in our yard. We had a pond, and it was getting close to fall/winter time. I fell in and my dad had been doing yard work. My sister was watching me, and she actually dove in and got me out. If she hadn’t been there, I would’ve drowned. I had never swum before.

Another close call: my sister, Tia, was pushing me in a stroller at the top of the hill on Bolt that intersects Buttrick. She let go of the stroller, and I went all the way down the hill. It was pretty crazy, I didn’t end up going fast enough to go all the way out into the road or tip over, but it was pretty close.

[The] third time, I was playing in our yard and a turkey vulture was circling above us, and one actually ended up coming down and started attacking me. I have scars from it; they look like tear streaks.

The fourth time happened when I was six years old because my dad works in construction and has a work truck. Something broke inside the truck, I was sitting outside of it, and a 200lb-something came flying out. It crashed and missed me by just a couple inches; it would’ve crushed me.

Another [time] was when I was climbing my dresser with the TV on it, and they both fell on top of me. It was before there were flat screens, so the TV had the huge piece behind it. I was pinned down, the TV screen broke, but luckily I didn’t get cut by any of the glass.

My sixth experience was during first grade when they would push all of the snow from the parking lot into one pile. It became its own thing for all of the kids to climb on it. There was this one spot with a dip, so it was like making a jump, but there was a tree branch. You’d swing onto the other jump, and basically what I did was I missed the tree branch, it hit me in the face, and I fell backwards onto my head. I was severely bleeding from the back of my head and my nose, and the teachers freaked out. They immediately crushed that monument, so I ruined the fun for everybody.

Lastly, in stores at the ends of the aisles, there never used to be plastic coverings– they were metal corners. I was being a six year old in my own world, skipping around, doing twirls and stuff. I tripped, and my head went straight onto one of those corners. It was two centimeters away from hitting my skull, which me being six and underdeveloped, [the metal] would’ve cracked [my skull]. I had to go to the ER; I wouldn’t stop bawling.

That’s the seven times I definitely could’ve died. Cats aren’t the only ones with nine lives, some people do, too.

I have two more left, I’m gonna try not to use them.”

(Junior)