Flower McIntyre’s untrained voice bellowed over the song playing on her car radio. She was driving through the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee heading to downtown Knoxville.

 "Staying alive. Staying alive. Ha ha ha ha. Staying alliiiiiive avvvvve aaa avvvvvve aave …..oh yeah!

She laughed at that, feeling elated, unable to contain her excitement about her future. At eighteen years old, having just graduated from Jacksonville High School in Jacksonville, Florida, she was now heading to the University of Tennessee on a full scholarship. She had wanted to attend that University from the day she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her best friend Helen from grade school was also going to be attending UT, and they had arranged to be roommates. All was well with the world. She was going to major in Biological and Biomedical Science, because UT was ranked as one of the best universities in that field, and it was not too far from her home in Florida.

As she continued to sing to the Bee Gees, she reminisced about her dad. The one who had gotten her hooked on the “oldies but goodies”. Something about those songs from that era always made her feel comforted and happy, bringing back memories of her dad and taking him with her wherever she went.

"Whoooowe!!", she shouted as Air Supply started playing, "Here I am”. She had all the windows down to her 2006 Ford Explorer and the wind was blowing through and tussling her long red hair, bringing with it the smell of earth and foliage, filling her nostrils.

She was driving on State Road 441, a forested road, off the busy interstate, and she was loving it. It was after four o'clock and the sun was low in the sky. Making her drive even more pleasant. She had gotten a late start, but she was going to get there in time. Plus, Helen was already there waiting for her in their dorm room.

Her Dad, Brad McIntyre had planned, and “old school” printed out the route for her, just in case she lost signal. It was a ten-hour drive, but this route kept her off Highway I-40 and took her to US-23, US-341, US-80, US-319 then US-441. So far she had hardly seen any traffic. Most of the time she was alone on the road, but she didn't mind that in the least. She was enjoying her drive through the mountain and was almost to the top of its 6,643 feet elevation point.

This route took her up and over the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. It was now the last days of Summer going into Fall, so the temperature was fair, and the wind was strong.

Flower drove for another four hours, and although she had stopped to have lunch, she was starting to feel hunger pangs. But she had planned for that, and that was why she had purchased a Footlong from Subway and had only eaten half and left the other half for later. She had also loaded up on a couple of bottles of water for the journey. But she had in error left them on the back seat of her car, and with her belongings stacked on top of each other, sliding around she had lost sight of it and would need to stop and search for them.

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Still, she drove for a few more hours. The sun had completely set, and it was getting dark outside. She was now really hungry and needed to stop and get the food. So, she started looking for a good “pull off” spot. But so far there were none that she was comfortable with. On the mountain, there were no streetlights, so she put on her bright lights, so she could see in the distance ahead.  Then she thought she saw a nice pull-off up ahead.

Slowing her car to a crawl, she peered through the night and the bright lights to see when to actually get off the road.

“That looks ok, right?” she asked herself. Slowly driving over to the area while listening to the crunching of gravel beneath her tires. She pulled off the road, put her car in park, and depressed her brake pedal. She unlatched her seat belt, and moving up to kneel on the driver’s seat, reached over to the back to search for her sandwich and a bottle of water.

Suddenly the car began to lean over to the right, and angle precariously into the darkness below.

She had stopped too close to the edge, and the ground was giving way. She panicked and scrambled to get back to a seated position in the front seat.  But her movements jolted the car, and it sank more on the side of the precipice. She struggled but couldn’t get herself back up. The car sank more. She could hear the dirt and gravel loosening. She was now thrown in between the two front seats and was stuck there. Her legs couldn’t find traction, so she pushed her feet against the Dashboard.

She began to struggle, trying hard to get herself upright, and in doing so, she felt the two right tires, front and back, go completely off the road. The car fell even more over the side of the mountain. She slowed her movements, trying not to shake the car further, and had just pushed herself to the back seats when she felt the ground give way below, and the car was falling through the trees.

Her body slammed against the windows. Luckily she had put them up when the air had gotten too cool to leave them down. If she hadn’t done that, she would have been tossed out through them.

She screamed as the car continued to fall through the trees. Crashing and breaking branches, hitting off the side of the mountain as it fell hundreds of feet below. She heard the front passenger side window break, and glass flew passed her face, missing her eyes by inches. Whenever the car hit a tree, her body would also be slammed against the back passenger’s door and window. Then came the final hit.

Her car was still in a free fall when it came to a hard stop atop an eighty-foot-tall American Elm tree. The sudden stop slammed her into the side of the car throwing her head into the glass hard,  “WHACK!!”. She bounced off and was thrown into a seated position. In her peripheral, she saw a massive branch heading toward her. It crashed through the window breaking off a limb and dragging it across her abdomen. Then crashed out through the next. Then the darkness came, and she knew nothing else.

Throughout the night, she drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point, she thought she saw someone or something looking in at her through the windscreen, then she was out again.