June 26, 2007
Laura Stewart’s story: While making a left turn at a green light, I was hit by a car driven by a 19-year-old male, high on marijuana and Xanax. He never touched the brakes, and his SUV, traveling at 50 mph, hit my car directly on the driver’s door. Fortunately, a nearby off-duty fireman immediately reacted to the crash. He cleared my windpipe so I could breathe.
When my husband arrived on the scene minutes later, one of the rescue personnel informed him that I was dead and that the crash investigation had been assigned to homicide detectives. The off-duty fireman, a family friend, then recognized my husband and realized it was me he had helped in the wreck. Fortunately, the quick actions of the fireman kept me alive, and he later received an award for his actions.
I was cut out of the car with the Jaws of Life. At the hospital, the doctor told my husband that my chance of survival was about 20 percent. I suffered a closed head trauma, a dissected aorta, broken ribs, a spinal injury, a collapsed lung, a sliced liver and a perforated bowel and bladder. My pelvis was shattered front and back, and I had a compound fracture of the right leg and a broken left ankle.
I was then kept in a drug-induced coma for six weeks so my movement would not rupture the aorta and the bleeding in my brain stabilized. My five children and family flew in from all over the country, started a prayer chain that stretched to Asia, and immediately had a sign placed above my bed in intensive care, “Miracle in Progress.”
The drugged driver was not injured. The prosecutor offered him a sentence of one year in jail as part of a plea bargain for a two felony conviction.
I probably will never be able to work again, I live in constant pain and my rehabilitation from this crash will be a lifelong process. My life and the lives of my husband, our five children and other family members have been forever changed by the actions of a person driving under the influence.
Words cannot adequately describe the stress, anxiety and pain my family and I have been through. As I try to make sense of why this happened to me, I believe it will be meaningful if just one individual who reads this story understands what driving under the influence can do to another person and a family – and doesn’t get behind the wheel. Sparing other people and families may be the blessing and gift I can give from this experience.