By Emma Neukam
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Another convocation. Another speaker with a heartwarming message. That’s all I thought Sarah Panzau, a guest speaker who travels the country recounting the tragic drunk-driving accident that changed her life, would be. Honestly, I was a little doubtful that she could get through to my classmates and me. I mean, how many AIDS/drugs/alcohol/drunk driving convocations have been presented in high school alone? I was sure that this would be yet another presentation I could sleep through.

I was dead wrong (no pun intended).

For those who weren’t able to attend the presentation, here’s a brief synopsis. Panzau, a high school varsity volleyball player who seemed to have her life together, decided to drive home one night after some heavy drinking with friends. When she left the bar on the morning of Aug. 23, 2003, her blood alcohol content (BAC) was .308 (almost four times the legal limit) and inevitably, she crashed. Panzau suffered innumerable physical consequences for driving drunk that morning, the most noticeable being the loss of most of her left arm.

It’s frightening to hear that one poor decision can leave scars that never fade and a once “perfect” life can shatter into a million pieces. It’s terrifying to hear that the people who you think will never leave your side might be the first to run away when tragedy strikes. 

That’s what happened to Panzau, and since her accident, only one of her so called “friends” has visited her. The rest have disappeared from her life altogether. Still, what scared me the most about Panzau’s presentation was that her life was completely devastated in a fleeting instant, a millisecond, a turn of the head or a blink of the eye.

Who knows if the world will end tomorrow or the day after? Someone’s world does end, every day. And tomorrow that person could be me or someone close to me. Too often, I let trivial matters come between me and others I love, blowing silly things way out of proportion. What if one of these petty arguments was the last conversation I had with my family or a friend? Even though I can’t honestly say I haven’t let an inconsequential argument get out of hand since Panzau’s speech at the school, I can say that I have paid more attention to the decisions I make every day and the way I treat others. I never want to put myself in a dangerous situation that will leave me to suffer such horrific consequences as Panzau did on Aug. 23, 2003.

Still, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and people can turn their lives around. Panzau is living proof that life doesn’t end when disaster hits. She has bounced back from the lowest point in her life and said she feels more successful than she’s ever felt before, telling teens in schools across the country to hold their loved ones close and to think before they act. Four years later, after undergoing over 40 surgeries, there she was last month in the school’s auditorium, a living, breathing miracle. But aren’t we all?