I did not learn how to drive until I was 19-years-old. I am now 21, and still have a fear of driving. I can still hear the silence before the shrilling screams. The cars wheels scratching against the pavement. What seemed to be a matter of seconds went by so slow. The vision of blood leaking from cars still fresh in my mind. When people think about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) they may think of war veterans or local firefighters. They don’t think about car accidents.

I was ten, and almost 12 years later I can still see the event play out in my mind. I do not dare to close my eyes in a moment while riding in a car. My typical suburban, southern-style family was leaving from a typical Sunday grocery store visit. We had gone to our Church earlier that day. It seemed so normal. So typical of a day. But then again, the day your life changes forever seems typical until the very second your life is altered.

My mother and father were in the front of the car. My older brother was in the back. I remember begging for a treat in the grocery store (Weis) with my brother. We rarely had sweets but my mother purchased sodas and chips for us because we were so good. Treats in hand, my brother and I raced into the car to win a family game we made up

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My parents encouraged this game because it got us to buckle our seat belts and lock the doors. Out of breath and rushing to push my door lock down my brother had already won the game, “Buttons down! Buckle up! I said it first,” he screamed at the top of his lungs. As I huffed and puffed my father got into the car with a grin and said, “how about some tunes?”  While my mom was gracefully walking into the car with her leisurely pace, my brother and I kept arguing playfully. He insisted on a soft rock station. I pleaded for a local country station, 99.9 WFRE.

Finally, my mother, as known as the referee in the family, changed the station to 99.9 WFRE. While my brother moaned and groaned she turned around to wink at me. I still remember my father singing along to the tune. As the music played softly, I could hear the beautiful humming from my mother. Her voice methodical and peaceful.
As my dad pulled out of the parking lot, my brother and I went to open our bags of chips. The scent of UTZ salt and vinegar chips filled the car. My brother had a bag of old bay potato chips. Together they made the familiar smell of a family road trip.

My family got along best on car rides. My brother had stashed a binder of CDs in the car. As he pulled out his head phones and CD player, he slipped into a different world. My dad looked back and smiled at us and sang along to the steady beat of a country song. To this day I do not remember what song it was. I simply remember the happy bouncing of an upbeat in the background. We turned a few times and drove slow. Enjoying every second. A few minutes later we reached a red light to leave the shopping area.

My dad used to play another car game with us. It was called “blow away the red light.” We played it at every stop light we encountered until my brother and I figured out how he won each time. The goal of the game was to literally blow air from your mouth, like you would blow out a candle from a birthday cake. The goal was to make the red light turn into green. While my brother and I used to go purple attempting to make this happen, my father would simply take a short puff and preform his magic. When we got old enough to learn what the orange and yellow lights meant, we understood how he won the game! He would blow just as the light turned yellow. Although he was not a real magician he was still our personal source of magical fun.

However, this was not one of those memorable stop light games. As I reached down to pick my root beer soda I heard a funny noise and thought nothing of it. Almost like a car speeding from far away. This is not uncommon in area we were in. I unscrewed the cap to my soda watching as the fizz went down for a mere moment, and raised it to my face.

All of the sudden the sound of the racing car was now like nails on a chalkboard. I heard honking and screaming all at once. The sound was the sound of cruel fate making its move to change the lives of our family forever. As I looked up soda still in hand my brother grabbed my hand and my father ducked in his seat. I saw flash of the spinning vehicle crash into another turning into the shopping center. The woman driving the vehicle was not a person to me yet. She was a monstrous being in a metal tank of doom. The car flipped upside down and landed on top of our small four door vehicle. As I looked up, the metal ceiling was crushing down on our car. The last person to reach for me was my mother. Her hand grabbing mine in a panic. As she lashed her head back at me, she seemed to mouth the words I love you. The loud honking and slamming of cars tuned her once comforting voice out.

The car of doom sat on the top of ours for a split second that seemed to last forever. As it flipped down to my side of the vehicle, the woman in the car was still not a person to me yet. As I looked out my window stunned and trembling, soda spilled across the floor and chips scattered over our seats, I saw her vehicle flip two more times before hitting a light pole.

There is a silence after every tragedy. It comes swifter than you can imagine. But the silence is not a peaceful one. It is an empty, cold silence. One that chills your bones and makes you shiver with goose bumps. I don’t remember who broke the silence, but I do remember my father yelling in pain and my brother hanging onto my hand as if it were his life source. As my body froze, clutching the spilled soda bottle, I could not comprehend what had just happened.

The on-lookers around us ran to our car. I remember hearing people yell, “They have kids inside,” while others ran to help the truck driver. Nobody ran to her car. I guess she was not a person to them yet either. She was only the metal that caused pain to unwilling participants. As people approached the car, my brother, mother and I were assisted out of our shield of protection. I overheard a man speaking to my father. He carefully opened the door and knelt down towards my screaming father. The only words I could hear in the blank face of a man I did not know came out of him, “They are sending the helicopter. They will be here soon sir. Can you feel anything below your waist?”

My mother ran to my brother and I gave us the tightest hug I have ever received in my life. Our bodies were stiff and covered in cold sweat. As she looked down at us she instructed my brother and I to stay near the car and gazed over at the terror that had caused the accident. Still. Nobody was there. As she walked toward the vehicle I walked quietly behind her, my empty root beer bottle still in hand. My legs were shaking so bad I could not will myself to run; leaving my brother behind to stare at my father who was still howling in pain.

When my mother had turned around to find me behind her, she shouted at me. “I told you to stay by the car,” she said. But it was too late. We were less than a foot away from the metal nightmare that had changed my life forever. As the helicopter flew from above and sirens were drawing near, my mother’s tears streamed down her face. She knelt down to kiss my forehead and whispered, “You weren’t supposed to see this honey.”

There she was. Face bathed in blood. Red, fresh smelling blood everywhere. The air bag drenched in blood from her once lively body. She was muttering, barely alive. She was a person. She was a person in pain. A person who had driven drunk. A young, 20 something person whose only comfort was my mother and a little 10-year-old girl clutching a root beer bottle.

As the helicopter carried my father away and my mother and I were escorted away from the person submerged in blood. I spent the rest of the night in Baltimore Shock Trauma with my family. The comfort of my empty root beer bottle in my hands. My head filled with endless questions. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why did she do this to me and my family? Was she still alive?

It took me a year of therapy to not scream in terror every time my family got in the car to go the grocery store. It took years later to finish the court settlements. Yet, to this day I still feel the common PTSD symptoms that many people experience after a traumatic event. According to the National Institute of Health, the following are symptoms of PTSD: Flashbacks, or feeling like the event is happening again, trouble sleeping or nightmares, feeling alone, angry outbursts, feeling worried, guilty or sad.

In my dreams sometimes she will haunt me. Blood spilled over her tiny body. The faceless, people surrounding me. She will cry out for help and beg for me to get her out of the car. When I wake, the cold sweat reminds me of that day. The best cure for the pain is to get in the car. Drive to a place I love and enjoy the fresh air and peace of mind in knowing that I will never have to re-live that day again in my life.

I leave all of you with a quote found by a study conducted in 2011from the Association for Psychological Science, “ Psychological scientists have found that, while going through many experiences like assault, hurricanes, and bereavement can be psychologically damaging, small amounts of trauma may help people develop resilience.”  PTSD does not control my life, but rather through this experience has made me stronger and more sensitive to each person around me.