Your Stories

I was only 16 and I can honestly say if anybody else was in my vehicle I doubt they would have made it out alive. I was headed home after school on February 8, 2002. I don't know how I crashed my car because the way the road was and the immense amount of damage done to my car. We live out in the country and I crashed about a mile away from my house on a gravel road. We have no idea what happened except that I hit a little concrete bridge that goes over a drain pipe. It is on a gravel road and around here the gravel roads get pretty crappy with big potholes. And, right before the bridge I crashed at, the road was partly washed away. That was one possible reason my car went out of control. My oldest sister, a nurse, was the one who found me. She said my entire car was completely all messed up except for a few inches all around my entire body. Bianca, my sister, said when she found me I was completely cognizant, but now I don't remember a single thing. I have no recollection of any of my accident.
Lifeline, the helicopters, had to take me from the site of my accident to one of the main hospitals in Indianapolis. When I got to the hospital they put a tracheotomy in me and put a halo on my head and neck. I was on a ventilator for a while also. The doctors told my parents that I would be on the vent for the rest of my life! But, I thank God I was off of it completely in less than a month!!! After a few weeks I had a surgery to stabilize and fuse my neck and they switched me to and Minerva Brace. I was in the hospital for around six weeks. I got rid of both the brace and trach by June of that year. My injury level is C4-C5. I can move my upper shoulders, upper back, and biceps and my feeling stops about the middle of my upper arms.
I don't remember a lot of stuff. Even my memory of my junior year of high school (my accident was in February of my sophomore year) is still foggy.
I had A LOT of visitors and support. People I didn't even know came to see me. I do remember my boyfriend told me when I was sleeping sometimes he would squeeze my pinkie really hard in hopes that I would feel it and wake up and yell at him to stop.