We all have one mistake from our youth, which stands head and shoulders above the rest. The crown jewel of screw-ups. The kind of memory that shows up while showering, forcing you to decide whether or not it’d be best to go back to bed.

Mine happened in January 2003 when I was a senior in high school. 

In the days leading up to the faithful moment, word began to spread around the school about a party: where it was, who was going, and who couldn’t go. Those details never concerned me much. What did concern me was the anxiety of coming up with and delivering a believable lie to my parents regarding my whereabouts. I would carry the anxiety with me for days after the party until I was sure there wouldn’t be any fallout if the person hosting the party were caught by their parents. 

I found, with my parents, that it was best to keep the story short and simple.

“I’m staying at {BELIEVABLE FRIEND’S NAME} ‘s house tonight,” was all I needed to say to get my pass to go out on the town to risk my life whichever way I chose.

I preferred to be the driver whenever I went anywhere with my friends. Have you ridden in a car with a teenager? It’s the worst. They’re so irresponsible.

My girlfriend, Jenni, four friends, and I piled into my Jeep Grand Cherokee. We made our way to the party at a lakeside cabin belonging to somebody’s grandparents. There would be no grandparents present at the party. 

I’ll never understand how people had the guts to host parties in their family’s homes. Never in my life did I even consider throwing a big party when my parents were out of town. Not because I was such an outstanding child but because there was no way I could’ve had a good time due to the crushing anxiety of getting caught.

We found the cabin and pulled down a long, narrow driveway that had recently been snow-plowed. There was enough room for a single vehicle to make it down the narrow gap between snowbanks about four feet high on either side. Since we were some of the first people to arrive that evening, we could drive to the end, where the driveway opened up in front of the cabin and a detached garage.

The frigid January air greeted us as we got out of the Jeep. It was the kind of cold that hung heavy in the still air and stung every bit of bare skin it touched. The low hum of the bass line to the music playing in the garage was the only sound to be heard. We hustled to get into the garage, safe from the cold. 

The side door to the garage opened, and the low hum of the music was amplified into the bitter night air mixed in with the sounds of happy chatter and laughter from thirty drunken teenagers. The noise was so jarring that I was sure at least one neighbor within a five-mile radius had heard and was alerting the authorities. We hustled into the cigarette-smoke-filled garage to get the night started. 

This was the kind of party I was ready to leave almost as soon as we walked in. While there were going to be friends of mine at this party, most people in the garage gave me a look that said, “What are you doing here?” 

I was handed a Busch Light, the official beer of Crow Wing County and the Millennial generation. As the designated driver, I resolved to make it my only beer for the night. A few moments later, I was invited to take my turn with the most giant beer bong I had seen in my life to that point. I declined but had a great time watching the show from the corner of the garage as others took turns funneling beer down their throats with varied success.

It wasn’t long until we were stuffed into the garage like sardines as more people arrived at the party. It’s funny how much more fun atmospheres like those are when drunk. Sober, the stories aren’t funny. People are constantly bumping into you and spilling beer on your shoes. Everything is so loud. It is hell on Earth. When my patience ran out, I told my friends it was time to leave. 

Fortunately, they were all ready to leave as well. I went out to start the Jeep and warm it up before we left. When I looked down the driveway, I realized we had a problem. 

As people arrived at the party behind us, they began to park in a straight line down the narrow driveway, leaving no room for cars to exit. Parking on the side of the road would have drawn attention, while turning a long driveway into a parking lot kept the party hidden. That is teenage logic at its finest.

I went into the garage and broke the news to my friends, convinced we would be forced to stay until the middle of the night. 

They looked at me like I was crazy and impatiently gave me the solution, “Just drive out on the lake and go to the public access.” 

Indeed, there was a plowed path to the lake for ice fishermen. I felt uneasy about the plan but shrugged it off. After all, I had driven on lakes many times before without issue. Plus, one of my friends claimed to know the lake and exactly how to get to the public access. 

Thanks to the beer bong, we got in the Jeep down a passenger. Jenni sat shotgun, and my friends Fred, Andy, and Mark sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the back seat. I slowly made my way toward the lake. 

There was a ridge on the plowed path as it approached the lake. As the front wheels of my Jeep went over, there wasn’t enough clearance, and it came to a grinding halt as it bottomed out on the icy snow. 

It was as though the universe was trying to keep me from driving out on the lake.

When I got out, my Jeep looked like a teeter-totter at rest. My mind scrambled to come up with worst-case scenarios. Since I knew little about cars, I resorted to convincing myself that whatever I’d done would be expensive. 

My friends jumped out of the back, took a look, and all agreed it was not a big deal. A few onlookers from the party saw me get stuck and made their way over to help. I returned to the driver’s seat and followed the instructions being shouted at me by the drunks pushing. After about half an hour of rocking and pushing, the Jeep lurched toward the ice-covered lake as the cheers of drunken teenage boys echoed into the wintry night air. 

My friends piled into the backseat, desperate to get relief from the cold. I slowly drove out on the ice.

“Where do I go?”

“Just head out on the lake, then turn right and follow the shore. The public access is right after the point you can see over there,” Mark said.

“No, it’s further than that. The access is around the next point,” Andy corrected him.

“No, it’s not, dude. I was just fishing out here a month ago. The Lake Edward public access is right around that point.”

“This is Pelican, not Edward.”

“Oookay, Andy. This is definitely Edward.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, interrupting the disagreement, “I’ll keep following the shore until we find the access and get off the lake.”

“It’s Pelican…” Andy said, getting the last word in, per usual.

I turned up the music, which was, ironically, “Hot In Herre” by Nelly. After a couple of minutes, Mark started giving instructions again. 

“Just go past this point and drive into the bay. That’s where the public access is.”

I followed his direction, and we started driving toward the bay. As I approached the channel leading into the bay, the argument over the lake started again in the back seat. 

I was laughing at the banter when Mark said, “Wait, this don’t look right…”

At the same time, we hit what felt like a speed bump, sending the front of the Jeep upward. When it came down, it plowed through the ice. Icy water splashed up the hood and onto the windshield before receding. 

We broke through at a forty-five-degree angle. I was stunned by the odd look of the Jeep’s headlights illuminating the water under the ice as panic set in; time seemed to stand still as I watched, in amazement, as water poured out of the vent at my feet. 

Jenni’s screams next to me and my friends yelling, “Get out, get out, get out,” from the back seat snapped me back to reality. 

Because we broke through the ice nose first, my friends in the back could open their doors and exit the Jeep quickly and mostly dry. Jenni and I couldn’t open the front doors as the ice was too thick, and they wouldn’t budge more than an inch. 

Jenni’s screams were those of a girl certain she was in her last moments alive and it was all my fault. I told her she needed to go out the back, but panic made it difficult. I yelled to the guys standing on the ice to get her out. 

Andy jumped into the back seat, grabbed Jenni by the back of her jacket, pulled her between the front seats, and out the back door onto the ice. 

In my mind, he saved her life.

With everyone out of the Jeep, I could focus on my situation. I sat in the driver’s seat as the frigid water rose to my chest. Watching Jenni struggle to get to the back seat was enough to convince me that was not an option. 

I slammed my shoulder into the door as I attempted to open it again, hoping to break the ice enough to make room to slide out. No luck.

If you ever find yourself in a car on top of a frozen lake, please have your window down and your seatbelt off. Here’s why:

After trying the door, I realized I could see everything clearly because the dome lights were on. The Jeep still had power. I tried pushing the button to roll down the window, and it worked. 

As the window went down, it went below the surface of the ice, and water began to pour through fast. The down window also let me hear my friends yelling, “Get out of the car,” in unison.

You think I remember thinking to myself as I reached through the open window to pull myself out. I made it a few inches before I was stopped by something holding me back.

My seatbelt. 

I sat back in the driver’s seat and looked at the buckle under the clear, freezing water. I plunged my hand down and, miraculously, unhooked the seatbelt. Quickly, I reached out of the window and pulled myself onto the surface of the ice, soaking wet. 

We moved about a hundred feet from the Jeep and watched it descend through the ice. After a long forty-five seconds, we watched the lights turn off when it lost power. 

The lights turning off highlighted the black sky spackled white with thousands of twinkling stars. I was dazzled at the beauty when Mark leaned close and said in my ear:

“Just tell the cops it was stolen, dude.”

I almost laughed. I didn’t care about trouble or consequences just then. Everyone was alive. The only thing more important to me then was getting back to the cabin so we could dry off and warm up. We made the half-mile trek back to the party, and by the time we arrived, my once-soaking-wet sweatshirt had frozen into a wearable piece of plywood. I could knock on my chest, which sounded like a door.

My blood boiled as people made jokes at my expense, daft to the fact we all could have been trapped inside a Jeep under the ice. 

Luckily, there were people at the party who were both sober and willing to give us rides home. I sat in the back seat, running through the night’s events, thankful to be on my way home.

We made it back to my house, where I had to do that fun thing of waking my Mom (my Dad was out of town for work) to tell her how I had messed up. The good news is, when you almost kill yourself and your best friends, the punishment is pretty light. 

The next day, we drove out to see the damage in the sunlight. 

As it turned out, my Jeep was a mere fifteen feet from shore in about six feet of water. The bump we felt before breaking through was a slight pressure ridge formed at the mouth of the small channel I drove into. Ninety-five percent of the Jeep was under ice. A few feet of the roof and the rear window were all you could see. Well, that and scattered Busch Light cans frozen into the ice surrounding the Jeep. Neither my mom nor the tow truck driver believed me when I told them they weren’t mine.  When I tried to explain this fact, the response I got was a skeptical, “Uh-huh…”

Fortunately, and much to my surprise, the police didn’t even care to look at the site of the accident as long as we got the Jeep out of the water within the week. Plus, insurance covered removing it from the lake even though it required a SCUBA diver to get it hooked to the tow truck. 

Everything feels like a win immediately after a close brush with death. 

A couple of days later, Andy called me to see if I had been to look at the Jeep in the body shop. When I told him I hadn’t, he offered to come and help me get my things out of it. I explained he didn’t have to come, but he insisted.

We went to the body shop, and I started to collect my things. Of course, my backpack with all my textbooks and notebooks was ruined. My Samsung flip phone was still plugged into the charger, and after a couple of days of drying out, it worked like it was brand new. The book that held my CDs was ruined, but all the CDs survived. 

Andy sprang into action when I opened the rear hatch, collecting what was left of his Busch Lights, about eighteen beers. 

I thought he was being a supportive friend because of his bravery the night of the accident, but his sole mission was to retrieve his beer. 

The next night, I got a text message from Andy: 

These Busch Lights are ice-cold. 

Of course, the Jeep was a total loss, which was fine with me. It had this ugly visor over the windshield with orange lights. The prospect of spending my last few months as a Senior without a car was a nightmare. 

That anxiety was short-lived, as about a week later, I was forced to tag along with my parents on a trip to Miami. My parents bought me a new Jeep first thing when we returned to Minnesota. The new Jeep had a V8 engine, leather interior, heated seats, a sunroof, and, most importantly, no visor. 

It was a harsh lesson, but I learned from it. 

Rarely does a week go by that I don’t think about how devastatingly different things could have ended up. I’m thankful to be able to look back now and laugh.

Above all, I’m thankful for Andy’s quick action that night to save the most wonderful girl I’ve ever known.

Bravery like that deserves an ice cold beer. 

Cheers.

See the original version from Tumblr in 2012, here.