The Girl Who Lived

I left Cody, WY mid-morning and my GPS took me on a stunning 14 mile drive through the Wind River Indian Reservation. The highway aligned with the river that poured through the mountains and a set of railroad tracks passed through tunnels that looked like they’d been set as a trap for the Road Runner.

I took in the magnificent view as I pushed play on my next audio book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m sure most people are familiar with the story of Harry Potter but in a nutshell, it’s the tale of an eleven year old boy who must defeat the darkest wizard in history, Lord Voldemort. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents and in a failed attempt at killing Harry, he left a lightening bolt shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. Harry became known in the Wizarding World as “The Boy Who Lived” as he was the only person to have ever survived a killing curse.

I was first introduced to Harry Potter by my friend Danielle when I was about twenty years old. Danielle had been my best friend since the 7th grade when I almost made her vomit from the smell of a bag of Funyons I was eating on the volleyball bus. While time has placed some distance, both physically and emotionally, between the two of us, she will always hold a very special place in my life.

I was a skeptic of the Harry Potter series and when I found myself having some free time in the summer of 2003, she suggested I read the series. She assured me I would love it and she was right. Sixteen years, four trips to the Wizarding World, a visit to the Warner Brothers studio in London, a ride on the real Hogwarts Express, and several book and movie releases later, I’m a full-fledged fan.

While my story isn’t similar to Harry’s in that I have had to fight a dark lord, I do know what it is like to have survived a situation I wasn’t supposed to walk away from. And so, as difficult as this post is for me to share, I know that it is probably the most important one. It’s the story about how I became the girl who lived.

It was July 3rd, 2017. I received an email from my boss around 12:30 telling me that since it was the day before the holiday, myself and my team could leave early. It was only my third day back at work after spending three weeks in Europe and I could have built a fort around my desk with the amount of paperwork I needed to catch up on. So, I sent my employees home and retreated back to my office to work for another couple of hours. When I felt like I had made enough progress I locked up the office and called my mom from the parking lot. I asked her if she wanted to get some dinner. She agreed and I started my 60 mile commute home.

I exited the interstate and passed through the four-way stop onto highway 161. I turned up the volume nice and loud on my stereo. I was given a CD of Irish pub songs for free at a gift shop in Ireland with my souvenir purchases. I don’t think I turned the CD off once since I had come home and as I belted out the words to a cover of Galway Girl by Steve Earle I thought about where my mom and I were going to go for dinner. I remember feeling very at peace in that moment. Aside from Europe and the birth of my nephew, it had been a terrible year for me. It had only been four days since that first and monumental therapy session and I felt like my life was finally reaching a point of stability again.

As I entered the giant S curve that marked the half-way point of my commute home, I disengaged my cruise. But before I could pick up speed on my exit out of the curve, I was met head on by an 18 foot commercial truck that had drifted into my lane. I would learn later he was asleep at the wheel. What happened next took place in a matter of seconds, but it felt like time had somehow suspended itself and defied every law of physics with the way I remember it all playing out in the slowest of motions. When I saw the red reflection of the shinny emblem on the front of his truck, instantly I knew I was going to be hit by a vehicle much larger than mine. Instinctively, my foot slammed the break and my body tensed as I prepared myself for the unavoidable point of impact. There was the distinct noise of the crunching of metal on metal and as I was spun 180 degrees I could only see white. It was the air bag deploying.

Then there was silence. Deafening silence. A silence so quiet and so traumatic that when it was interrupted by a voice, I barely recognized it as my own: “Holy shit, I’m alive. I’m alive” I breathed heavily.

My car had landed in the ditch facing the opposite direction I had been traveling. I don’t know how long I was in my car alone before the Good Samaritan running toward me reached my vehicle emerging through the smoke and wreckage. It couldn’t have been but thirty seconds but judging by the way my brain immediately was bombarded with a slew of thoughts it felt like I had all the time in the world to process through what had happened to me. It went something like this, Why is it so quiet…The radio stopped working…I didn’t know radios did that during an accident…my hand is throbbing…it must be broken…I’ve never broken an arm before…is it supposed to be that color….am I paralyzed…my knee won’t move but I can move my foot….that’s a good sign…where is all of this smoke coming from….is my car on fire…I don’t see a fire…if my car is on fire I need to get out of here….my plan will be to use my shoulder to shove my door open then I’ll tuck and roll out of here…I need to call my mom…where is my cell phone…I can’t find my cell phone…where is my work phone…I can call her on her on my work phone…I hope she has her work phone with her because that is the only number for her I have in my work phone…what am I going to say to her…be sure to start off by telling her you are okay so that she doesn’t freak out…I can’t find my work cell phone…wait, here is my personal cell phone…I put it under my leg…I don’t remember doing that but I’m glad I did.

At that point, the Good Samaritan approached my vehicle with his cell phone in hand presumably calling 911. His presence immediately was reassuring. He opened my passenger side door and asked me if I was okay. I told him I thought my arm was broken and something was wrong with my knee. We had a brief conversation about how the other driver was okay. The Good Samaritan rolled down my window and told me the smoke I was seeing was from the air bag. He instructed me to roll down my window on my side and as I did so the smoke began to clear. I clicked open my cell phone and called my mom. “Hello,” she said. “Mom, mom, I’m okay, but I’ve been in an accident” I explained. I’m sure she could hear my strained attempt at staying calm.

I remember our conversation quite vividly as it isn’t something I can easily forget. The details aren’t important but what is important is that I must have said, “I can’t believe he hit me” no less than a half a dozen times. I was just in such a state of shock. She remained on the phone with me until the ambulance arrived. At one point I said to her, “please keep talking to me.” She replied, “I’m not hanging up until help gets there.” I don’t know what compelled me to tell her to keep talking to me. It was such a weird thing to say. It was like I was afraid she was going to hang up on me which I knew good and well wasn’t the case. We laugh now about how absurd that directive was at the time but after processing through it, I think it was just my reaction to the deep and profound sense of aloneness I was feeling in that moment.

A second good Samaritan approached my car and told me she was a nurse. I explained my injuries to her and she assured me she was going to stay until help arrived. It was at that point my cell phone lost service and I dropped the call. I saw the ambulance approaching and I dialed my mom again to tell her. She assured me, “You’re going to be okay. Call me when they tell you which hospital you are going to and I’ll get your sister and we will come meet you. I love you.” “I love you too,” I said and hung up the phone as a first responder approached my door.

He introduced himself, and in that moment, I tried to remember his name, but it left my head the minute he said it. He told me he was going to pry my door open as another responder entered my car from the passenger side. There was another crunch of metal and my door was suddenly wide open. The responder kneeling beside me asked me if I hit my head at all. I responded rapidly, “I don’t think so…I mean…how would I know if I did or not…I mean, I don’t think I did because I think I remember everything.” He immediately started to assess my injuries asking me if I could move my hips, neck, and other extremities. I complied and felt a sense of relief that I could follow his directions. He then pointed to my bracelet on my injured hand. “Is this important to you,” he asked. Without hesitation I firmly responded, “Yes, Please don’t cut it off of me. It’s very important.” The bracelet he was referencing was one I had purchased in Ireland. My mind briefly recalled the day I bought it at the gift shop near the Blarney Castle. It was brown leather with brown wooden beads and it had small metal plate on it that simply said, Ireland. I had worn it every day since the day I purchased it. Something that I had just seen as a cheap souvenir was suddenly taking on a great deal of meaning and I didn’t want to lose it. I loosened the tie with my teeth and slide it off my wrist. I kept it clenched in the fist of my good hand not letting go until i reached the hospital.

He then began preparing the neck brace and explained how I needed to put it on. I was suddenly aware of more responders making their way down the embankment behind me with a body board. As he tightened the brace around my neck the second responder to my right took over. The panic started to set in again as the brace was strapped around me not only preventing me from moving but making it more difficult to breath. The second responder must have noticed my increase in alarm as at that point he instructed me to take a few deep breaths and remain calm. I do have to say, I’m quite proud of myself for how relatively calm I was able to remain. The inside of me was clawing and screaming that I just wanted to desperately abandon this situation, but I had an awareness that that if I didn’t remain calm then they couldn’t treat me.

The second responder instructed me a second time to stay calm and take another deep breath as they were going to move me out of the vehicle. In my head I became a bit defensive thinking to myself that I thought I was calm enough, but I did as he instructed anyway. I took a deep breath, crossed my arms, and allowed them on the count of three to guide my broken and bruised body out of the vehicle.

A few choice expletives slipped out of my mouth as I slid onto the back board. That movement sent a sharp and excruciating pain through my broken rib cage. They carried me to the ambulance and I was greeted by a young woman who introduced herself as Charity. Her name I remember because it struck me as funny that an EMT would be named Charity. Once again, I was asked to explain my injuries and she started to check me over. “Are these jeans important to you,” she asked. I couldn’t even remember what jeans I had on and knowing I only had two pairs of jeans that fit me well, I reluctantly told her to go ahead and do what she needed to do. And with that she grabbed the scissors and began cutting up the pant leg of my injured knee. I was asked which hospital I would like to go to and chose the one in my hometown which was just as close as any of the others. I called my mom and told her they were taking me to Clay County, and conveniently she had just pulled into town and was at the intersection of the hospital. “I’ll see you in just a few minutes” she assured me. We hung up and the driver of the ambulance hollered from the front, “Hang on, it’s going to get bumpy.” He seemed chipper and calm like the kind of guy who is good at distracting you from something scary. It annoyed me and comforted me all at the same time. I struggled to orient myself to which direction I was facing as the ambulance rocked back and forth, stopped, started, went forward and then backward. Where my car had landed, there was a tree line on one side and the highway was on the other and I started to wonder why it felt like we were driving through a field as there was no field near me to drive through. But before I could finish my thought, the back of the ambulance door swung wide open. At that moment a sobering thought dawned on me. There was a field on the other side of the road and the ambulance was positioning itself to get closer to the other driver. They were going to transport us both to the hospital. Immediately, I braced myself as I was about to come face to face with the stranger who hit me.

I’ve always wondered what kind of person I would be in the midst of a traumatic event. I’ve always envied those who could be gracious and kind and forgiving when faced with such situations and I always thought I had the ability to be the person who would look into the eyes of someone who had hurt them and tell them something gentle and loving just like Jesus did and would have done.

As it turns out, I am not that person.

As they lifted his gurney up into the ambulance our eyes met, and he quickly averted his gaze to focus on something on the ceiling. They pushed him in through the door, and he was positioned so close to me that we could have held hands. I could see him out of the corner of my eye as he refused to look in my direction. Charity leaned over me to continue her work and through a dry and scratchy voice I quietly asked her if that was the driver. Thinking I was referring to her partner that had now entered the ambulance she told me no, that he was another EMT. “No,” I said, “Is that the driver of the other vehicle.” There was a brief pause and I could tell she was thinking about how to respond. She stated, “There are two patients and we have to treat you both.” “I understand that,” I said, my voice somehow getting stronger and louder and directed toward the man who hit me, “I’m glad that you are okay, but you could have fucking killed me.” Never in my life have I been that direct. Never have I ever looked at another human being and accused them of such an atrocity. There was silence and no movement from the stranger on the bed next to me. Thinking maybe he didn’t hear me the first time, I said it again. This time my voice cracked, my confidence waivered, and tears filled my eyes. “You could have fucking killed me” I said as I quietly began to cry. Because when you are me, you only have it in you once to be that bold. The second time your emotions overwhelm you and you lose your nerve.

There was silence again but this time broken by the other EMT who began to ask the driver of the truck his name, birthday, and medical history. There was a part of me that wanted a fight. I was so angry. I was more than angry. Whatever the word is to describe the worst anger I have felt, that was it. I wanted him to answer me. I wanted to hear his justification for being in my lane despite knowing good and well there wasn’t a single thing he could say to me that would make me feel better in that moment. At the very least I wanted an apology just so I could reject it. But even in the midst of my distress I knew what an awful and terrible idea that would have been. I needed to be treated and I feared I couldn’t get the treatment I needed if I reacted dramatically. Charity continued her work and holding a stethoscope to my chest she asked me to take a deep breath. “Your lungs sound clear,” she said, “that’s a good sign.” The thought of internal injuries that I couldn’t see hadn’t even crossed my mind and disturbed by the idea of something being seriously wrong with me in addition to the adrenaline booming throughout my body, I suddenly felt nauseous. I wondered for a brief moment if Charity would unbuckle me long enough to let me roll over and vomit straight onto the man who had hit me. But assuming I had already made enough of a statement, I just wedged my fingers in between my neck and the brace to loosen it up and give me some more breathing room. The rest of the 30 mile ride to the hospital was spent in silence.

We arrived at the hospital and the back doors of the ambulance flew open and the sunshine was so bright, I had to close my eyes. When they wheeled me into the hospital, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust andI heard the words I had so desperately needed to hear in that moment, “Jessica, I’m right here.” It was my mom. I couldn’t see her but just the words alone were enough to give me the first bit of comfort I had received in the previous hour and half.

I was pushed into a room and immediately bombarded with questions: What kind of car were you driving…how fast were you going…were you wearing your seatbelt…where does it hurt…can you move your fingers…can you wiggle your toes…what day is it…do you know where you are…

I did my best to answer the questions as the medical team began their work. The nurse grabbed the scissors and started asking me about the importance of every single item of clothing I’m wearing. Everything that is except my bra. She just cut right up the middle of my bra before I could stop her, and my first thought was about how expensive that stupid bra was. It started to get quiet as the doctor left to order the tests I needed, and the staff cleared out of my room. My mom suddenly appeared over me and we made eye contact for the first time. “You look really good” she said, “I was expecting you to be bloody or cut up, but you aren’t” she explained. It suddenly dawned on me that I had only ever told my mom what was wrong with me and not necessarily what wasn’t wrong with me. I asked her to hold her phone over me so I could see myself. She did and for the first time since the moment I had been hit, I felt okay. They pain was unbearable, but I was okay and knew I was going to be okay. I begin to tell my mom the story again and a nurse interrupted us to ask if the rest of my family could come in.

They filed in one by one and greeted me: my sister, mybrother-in-law, my older brother, my sister-in-law, and my younger brother stood with their backs against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with each other. Their faces were concerned and apprehensive. It was quiet. No one was talking and I was suddenly aware of the impact this was having on them. Only one other time in my life had I ever been in a room with all my siblings with such an air of seriousness. It was when my dad had his heart attack and, in that moment, I instantly became aware of how silent we all become when death is on the line. I recounted the story for them, but honestly it was mostly for myself as I felt the urge to process through it again. Their looks of worry concerned me. “How are feeling,” someone asked me. And without missing a beat I responded with, “Like I got hit by a truck.” The tension broke and it was okay to laugh again.

After deciding who would be the one to go find my dad at work and tell him what happened, the room started to clear. My grandma called and I could hear my mom on the phone with her explaining that I was okay. She must have asked what I looked like because my mom was telling her that I wasn’t cut up or bruised on my face. “Tell grandma I’m just as cute as ever, “I quipped. When they hung up, my sister moved closer to the bed and took her place on my right side with my mom on my left. At that point they told me that the ambulance driver spoke to them on his way in. He told them I was lucky to be alive and how the front end of my car was smashed all the way up to the steering wheel. He mentioned to them how tough he thought I was and apparently he added, “And she sure can cuss too.” Confused my sister and my mom insisted on knowing what I had said. “Well,” I sheepishly explained, “I wasn’t going to ever tell anyone what I said but since the ambulance driver outed me, I guess I will.” I told them what I had said to the driver of the truck to which my mom then assured me, “Well, you aren’t going to go to hell for cursing.”

After my X-rays and scans, the doctor returned to my room with an update about my injuries. In addition to my multiple broken ribs, my left wrist was broken, and my left knee was shattered. It would require surgery and soon it was agreed I would be transported by ambulance to the Evansville Trauma unit, two hours away. My dad arrived and my mom and sister made plans to go home to rest, pack, and would travel to Evansville as soon as my ambulance was ready to leave. My dad took watch over me as the rest of my family hugged and said their goodbyes. My dad kissed my forehead and took his place next to me. I recounted the story again this time just for him. When I finished, he told me he how happy he was I was alive. “People in this world have real problems, kiddo,” he said. “I know it’s hard, but this isn’t anything we can’t overcome. Some people aren’t so lucky.” He reached out with his big, rough hands and put mine in his. For several hours we watched over me and he didn’t let go until the nurse returned to tell me it was time to go.

The ambulance ride to Evansville was difficult. My body was tired, but sleep did not come easy. Just as I would start to drift off, I would be jolted awake by the memory of the crash and my eyes would find the clock above the ambulance door and I would see that only a few minutes had passed. I repeated this so many times during the two hour trip that I lost count.

The next three days were emotional and exhausting. As I attempted to process my grief and trauma, I would go from angry to sad to scared to grateful to be alive sometimes all within the same conversation. My body and spirit were equally crushed. I did not sleep except only when medicated for fear of what I would see when I closed my eyes.

After my surgery I woke up with my new more permanent hardware on both my arm and leg. The entire left side of my body was restricted, and I was told I could be released from the hospital so long as I could manage without IV pain meds and could make it to the bathroom and back. Determined to go home so that I could begin my recovery, I gladly welcomed the physical therapist into my room to teach me how to maneuver my new walker. Since I was non-weight bearing on both my left leg and arm, I had a shelf with a handle attached to the walker where I could rest my left forearm and I was instructed to lean on my left elbow and right hand and hop on my right leg the five feet to the bathroom. I did as instructed, and with every hop I took, pain shot through my body, but I was cleared to go home.

The day I came home, I was fueled with anger. Although happy to be alive, I knew I had a very long road ahead of me and there was no escaping it. I couldn’t just skip over it. I had to go through it. I had a huge breakdown in the bathroom while my mom and sister-in-law watched, unable to console me. The man who hit me walked away from this accident with physical injuries much less substantial than mine, a scratch on his leg that I think required a couple of stitches, if memory serves me correctly. As for me, I could barely lift myself up off the toilet because Ididn’t hardly have the strength. As I laid down in the bed of my parent’s spare bedroom, a slew of irrational sentences left my mouth. The bed wasn’t in the right the place, there was a lampin my way, and most importantly, the man who hit me wasn’t even there to hear me complain about it. As I leaned back, I suddenly became aware that the only person in the room was my younger brother, Jacob. His 6’2’’ frame towered over me and I struggled to read the emotion on his face when he calmly but directly said to me, “Hey, this is better than planning a funeral.” He words hit me in the stomach. He was right.

The next week or so was spent rearranging the furniture of the house and tracking down the tools I needed to assist me in my recovery. Home health nurses, physical therapists, family, and friends filtered in and out of the house daily and we began to develop a routine that would carry me through the next eight weeks of my recovery. I consumed my pain pills as often as I was allowed, and twice daily shots of blood thinners were administered by my mom and into my stomach. I slept 2-3 hours a night if I was lucky. I continued with my rotation of good days and bad days and some that were just, indifferent.

I don’t remember the exact day, but it was sometime within the first week that the nurse told me it was time to switch out my bandage from my surgery. None of us had seen the damage that had been done to my leg and all I knew about it was what my doctor had explained to me about the procedure: One incision under my knee where the screws would go and three smaller incisions where stabilizations rods were inserted to hold the bones in place during the surgery, then some staples to hold it all together while it heals. The home health nurse ever so gently removed my leg brace and slowly and steadily began to unwrap the bandage. We all waited anxiously to see what was underneath it. When she finished, she stepped back and I was shocked to see that right there, under my knee just where the doctor said it would be, was a six-inch lightning bolt shaped scar. Just like Harry, I now possessed the remnants of a tragic experience that should have ended differently, butI lived to tell about it. I immediately started to text my Harry Potter loving friends and of course, Danielle was the first to get one. “Look! A lightening bolt shaped scar,” I said! “Of course,” she replied, “because you are the girl who lived!”

It would be 91 days exactly before I would walk completely unassisted for the first time. I returned to work and my coworkers along with my family got the privilege of watching me gruadate from the walker to the cane to gingerly maneuvering my way around the office on my own. When I started driving again, I dug out that leather bracelet I had bought in Ireland and started wearing it again. When something traumatic happens, small things start to take on big meanings and that bracelet now represented something so much more than just a back-packing trip across Europe with my best friend, Leslie. It now signified strength and power and life…my life. For a year and half I wore it every day. The string that allowed me to tighten it eventually broke and I replaced it multiple times. I couldn’t bring myself to part with it and dreaded the day it would no longer be wearable. It became a sort of grounding technique for me. Whenever I would find myself in stressful situations, I would touch it and say to myself, “you have survived every bad thing that has every happened to you. You will survive this moment too.”

A few months ago, I was sitting in a work meeting and a conversation I was having triggered some memories of my accident. It doesn’t take much to do so but, on this day, it was different. For whatever reason I decided to google the name of man who hit me. I had only done it once before; in the middle of one of my many sleepless nights. Before, I didn’t find any information on him, not even a Facebook page. I didn’t really expect to see anything when I typed his name into the search engine and pressed enter which is why I was so shocked to see what the result: an obituary.

My blood pressure shot up, causing my face to get warm, and my hands began to shake. I clicked on the link and discovered he passed away in March of this year. I walked out of the meeting and called my mom. Sitting on the front steps of work, I tried to find the words for what I felt but they weren’t coming to me. To this day, I still can’t tell you how I feel about this. I was not relieved. While this man had no wife or children, he did have parents and siblings. And judging by the comments left on his online obituary, he was loved. No parent should have to lose a child. My heart broke for them. But also, admittedly, there was a part of me, a very dark part of me that I’m not always proud of, that wished he was still alive just so we could both continue to live with the repercussions of his poor decision that day. It was a year and half after the accident, and I was still working through how I felt about him. I had moved on from anger to indifference and wanted to reach a point of forgiveness. But with him gone, I had no longer had a target.

But perhaps the most intense reaction I had was that of feeling alone. This man and I were connected. We literally collided for just one split second of our lives and while I can’t speak for him, that tiny second changed me forever. I had always struggled a great deal with this idea that I was alone during the accident. No one shared the experience with me, so I had no one around to validate my thoughts or feelings. But for some reason that I cannot really explain, it was like I felt less alone because this man and I had shared this moment together. We both felt that jolt, that point of impact when our vehicles collided, and I took solace in the fact that at least one other person on this planet knew what it felt like. And now, I’m the only one left to know.

I left work early that day and when I got home, I threw myself down on the couch and called a colleague. The nice thing about being a therapist is that at any given moment, another therapist is just a phone call away. She helped me process through it and as we spoke, I became anxious. In an effort to ground myself, my left hand drifted to my right wrist and I mindlessly began to touch my bracelet as I had so many times before. Only this time, it felt different. It felt wrong. It didn’t bring me any comfort. It almost felt like an insult to the memories this man’s friends and family shared about him. After we hung up the phone, I removed the bracelet and tucked it away in a jewelry box on the shelf in my closet.

Nearly two weeks went by and my wrist continued to feel naked. Sometimes I would even touch it during a moment of anxiety only to feel a sense of loss when I touched bare skin and not the bracelet that had brought me so much comfort. I decided it was time to replace it with something new. I spent hours pouring through Amazon and Etsy looking for something fitting but nothing seemed appropriate. It wasn’t until I stumbled on an Etsy shop that had bracelets, I could put my own saying on to. And so as it would be, the words “The Girl Who Lived” now adorn my right wrist, as my daily reminder of where I have been.

There are a lot of things about this experience that I can’t answer and feelings I can’t explain. Even to this day, my mind is riddled with the why’s and how’s and especially the what if’s. I was in the vehicle that wasn’t supposed to win, and I believe that nothing short of Devine Intervention placed me in the exact place and time that I needed to be in order to survive. But what I do know, is that I walked away a changed person, in some ways better and in some ways worse but still changed none the less. Memories that I just assume forget are forever imprinted in my mind and the symptoms of post traumatic stress often linger just below the surface. But still, I am stronger. I am braver. And, I seize more days now than I did before. I hug more and laugh more and I most certainly live more. Because that’s who I am now, I am the girl who lived.