Narrative Frightening Experience Essay Example

One of the most frightening experiences of my life happened when I was nine years old. I had stayed after school to play with some of my friends, as I lived close enough to home that I could walk. We were playing “Superman,” which is what we called the game where you swing as high as you can on the swing set and jump off. My friends and I always tried our hardest to see who could get the highest. As it got late and the sun started to set, my friends would wander off one by one to go home, until only I was left. Deciding I had one more jump in me, I kept swinging and swinging, getting as high as I possibly could, then I pushed myself off the swing.
Crack! I heard an unsettling crunching sound as my feet hit the ground, and my left ankle rolled. I tumbled over onto my side and looked down at my foot as I felt a sharp pain work its way up my leg. Pulling up my pant leg, I saw my ankle start to swell up, and I didn’t have much control over my left foot. Putting any kind of pressure on it or touching it caused incredible, screeching pain. I started bawling; however, no one was around – I was the only one left. I must have laid there for about a half hour by myself, crying and holding my sprained ankle. Anytime I tried to get up and put weight on it, I fell back down again and started crying; the pain was so excruciating, like none I had ever felt before.
As time passed, however, I knew that I had to get home. My house was only six blocks away, I thought to myself; I walk home all the time. My parents knew I liked to stay out late with my friends, and it wasn’t late enough that they would get too worried quite yet. Crawling to the swing, I pulled myself up and put all my weight on my right foot, holding my left leg up, my sprained ankle making my left foot wiggle in the breeze. Moving from bar to bar, and object to object, I leaned on whatever I could as I effectively limped my way out of the playground as if I only had one leg. Sometimes I would get on my hands and knees and crawl. Down the street I went – it was a small town, so no one was even out at that point. For six blocks I hopped down the street; it was painful and scary – I had no idea what I was going to do. I just wanted to get home.
When I was finally able to get home, my parents gasped and asked me what I did. I told them honestly, and they got me laying down with an ice pack on my elevated leg. Later, the podiatrist would tell me I had completely sprained my ankle – a Grade III sprain. I learned many things about myself that day – first, I learned that I needed to make sure not to test myself too much, or let my reach extend beyond my grasp. Secondly, I learned how to work past pain and severe obstacles to reach my goals and get to where I need to go.