by Natalie Fitts

Well that was embarrassing, sophomore Brit Maguire thought.

She had just run into a tree branch during an after-school cross country practice. She had run this same route along Ward Parkway once a week for the past two cross country seasons, but she had never collided with a branch before.

Oh well, she thought. She just needed to work on her skills in the art of running and talking at the same time.

But then she saw something creeping into the vision of her left eye. It was blood. And a lot of it.

She hadn’t just hit the tree branch. The tree branch had hit her. Hard.

It did not take long for others to notice the blood as well.

Before she knew it, her coach had laid her on the ground and started putting pressure on the wound, people had pulled their cars over and offered to call an ambulance and her teammates had offered their shirts to help stop the bleeding.

She was in shock, making it hard to understand exactly what was going on. And things got even more confusing and worrisome when people started commenting on how deep the wound looked and how much blood there was.

But before she had too long to dwell on what could be wrong with her, both her mother and an ambulance had arrived.

While Brit insisted on riding with her mother to the hospital, the ambulance drivers would not leave without being of some assistance. So before she left the scene, she got to watch the branch that cut her get cut down, never to harm a runner again.

After a 30 minute car ride to the hospital, 20 stitches and 48 hours of rest later, she was ready to run again. And this time, she had sunglasses.