PSA: If you think it can’t happen to you, think again

14 years ago, my daughter and I waited for her dad to return home from work and join us on a bike ride. Instead, a police officer rang our doorbell to inform us that my husband’s vehicle had been T-boned by a drunk driver. Paramedics completed fatality paperwork on scene—just in case. Emergency personnel used the Jaws of Life to extricate him from the wreckage. And he flew in a helicopter to a Level 1 trauma hospital where the head of OR performed surgery. My husband sustained a ruptured spleen, cracked ribs, a displaced clavicle, crushed hip, collapsed lung, lacerations, contusions and a diffuse TBI. He spent 59 days in the hospital—which included a medicated coma for 17 days and five weeks of inpatient therapy to relearn how to feed himself and to write and walk—followed by two months of outpatient therapy. Six months post-accident, he returned to work full time. But our lives were forever changed. Make the right choice: Don’t drink and drive.

Photo courtesy of Chandler Police Department.

PSA: One wrong choice *can* change a life forever

 

Thirteen years ago, an officer rang my doorbell to inform my 12-year-old daughter and me that a drunk driver ran a red light and T-boned my husband’s vehicle. Rescuers completed fatality paperwork onsite and the Jaws of Life extricated him from the wreckage (pictured above). He flew in a helicopter to a Level 1 trauma hospital where the head of OR performed emergency surgery. My husband sustained a ruptured spleen, cracked ribs, a displaced clavicle, crushed hip, collapsed lung, lacerations, contusions and a diffuse traumatic brain injury. For 59 days, I watched (and cheered) my husband on through a medicated coma, and five weeks of inpatient therapy where he learned how to feed himself again, to write, to walk. Following two months of outpatient therapy, and approximately a half year after the accident, he returned to work full time. His injuries and the subsequent life-long deficits are because someone chose to drive while intoxicated. Do the right thing: call a friend or a taxi. But don’t drive drunk.