Christian+Sherwood

Christian Sherwood Mrs. Bear English 10A 10\24\11 I Am Not a Hero Being a hero is like being beautiful- it’s all in the eye of the beholder. The definition of a hero to me may not be the same way someone else would describe one. To me, a hero is defined by sacrifice. This belief was all started by a sort of accident- the kind you get when you almost die from the cold. I barely remember what happened, but what I remember the most clearly was the fact that I never meant to jump in after Lane. //Jump// isn’t even the right word to use, so let’s use //fall//. I never meant to //fall// in after Lane, cutting the left sleeve of my winter coat on one of the jagged peninsulas of ice surrounding the hole and smashing my forehead on another. Lane was my best friend at the time, and we had been skating on the frozen over pond by his house. He had been jumping around on the ice, slowly getting closer to the thin ice in the middle of the pond. With a cracking sound that resounded like thunder throughout the park and a shrill scream, Lane fell through the ice. It didn’t happen like in the movies, with slow motion and dramatic action music in the background. I ran towards where I saw him disappear in the shoes that I used as skates, slid, and //fell// in after him (as explained above). At this point I had forgotten all about Lane and was preoccupied on getting my own sorry ass out of there. The freezing water had shocked my muscles and I was already succumbing to the cold. I had kicked off my shoes and had one arm out of my jacket when I went under. //I’m going to die//, I thought. It wasn’t a scream within my head; it was like a casual suggestion. My body stiffened and I slowly drifted down deeper. What I saw next pushed that casual suggestion out of my head. Lane was struggling at the bottom, one skate lying on its side, the other untied but still clinging to his foot. His struggling wasn’t what got to me; it was the look in his eyes, the mixture of fear, panic, anger, and determination staring me right in the face like a desperate animal in a cage. His eyes closed as I watched. I still don’t know how I did it. Lane’s weight certainly didn’t help though. I swam to him, almost locked up by the cold, and grabbed the back of his jacket. My breath had long since run out and my head was bleeding from where it had hit the ice. Everything was starting to go black and blood was running out of my nose, spreading out like red tendrils in the water, clouding my vision even more. Kicking as hard as I could, I propelled us to the hole we had fallen through. I climbed out first; using Lane’s face as a step, still holding onto his jacket. My body was screaming at me to just lie down, but I had to pull Lane out. Using both hands, I pulled him out and on top of me, covered in duck shit and soaked to the bone. He wasn’t breathing, and I hit him in the solar plexus. There was no CPR involved (I didn’t know how to anyways). I hit him again, harder, and water shot out of his mouth and into the air like a fountain. He coughed and his eyes flung open. Lane and I both were rushed to the hospital almost immediately when I arrived, soaking wet at Lanes house. Lane was in shock, I was bleeding heavily from the forehead, and we both had hypothermia. When I checked out of the hospital, it seemed that everyone knew what had happened. A news reporter for the local paper: //The Juneau Empire//, wanted to ask me a few questions and I even got my own story in the paper. The people who talked about me called me “brave” or “a hero.” I wouldn’t use either of those words to describe me. There is a very thin line between bravery and stupidity, and as for the heroics, I never meant to jump in after my Buddy in the first place. I don’t think I’m a hero. The only thing I sacrificed was my warm, puffy jacket and two of my shoes. A hero meaningfully and knowingly sacrifices something he or she loves for the betterment of someone else; they don’t accidentally fall through a hole and get lucky, (which is exactly what I did) they don’t get paid to do it, they don’t do it for publicity, and they don’t ask for anything in return, they just //do// it. That’s what I see as a hero.