By Noelani Mathews | WCTV Eyewitness News

LOWNDES Co. – It’s only been 24 hours since Sierra Landaverde was taking her normal bus ride from Lowndes High School.

Looking back, she says, the school bus crash on I-75 still feels like a nightmare.

Sierra says she replays it over and over, while in the Intensive Care Unit at South Georgia Medical Center.

“I remember talking to my friend on the bus then all the sudden I guess I blacked out and I woke up on the other side of the seat across from me”, says Sierra. “I heard screaming and crying. I saw the bus caved in and my seat broken into pieces.”

Sierra says she wonders how she’s still alive. She was sitting in the last seat of the bus when the tractor trailer struck her side.

Sitting in front of her, she says, was 15-year-old Rebecca Hall.

Georgia State Patrol announced Hall’s death at SGMC on Monday evening.

“The girl who passed away, I hope her family get a lot better,” says Sierra. “I hope that throughout time they lift her up instead of grieving because their daughter was a very good child.”

She also says she hopes people don’t get stuck blaming the driver, and that it could’ve happened to anyone.

“It could’ve been so much worse, but it wasn’t, and we just need to open our eyes and realize that our life isn’t planned and we shouldn’t take it for granted because our life can go away as quick as you exhale.”

Doctors told the family she has broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a bleeding spleen.

Sierra says she feels like she should’ve died, but didn’t.

With the community’s support, she says, she’s fighting to become stronger.

Sierra and her family are hoping to move out of the ICU in a week.

Georgia State Patrol hasn’t released the names or conditions of the other 12 injured students.