November 10, 2016 – It was alleged to be a straightforward Sunday evening trip to the food market.After shopping, Nicole Lawrence and her 4 Penn State roommates got into Lawrence's Honda Civic to drive home, her friend Katie behind the wheel. As Katie turned left at the underside of a hill, a speeding automotive with no lights approached at nighttime.The young women screamed because the automotive flew over the hill and T-legged their small automotive. The Honda spun 3 times, hit a curb and stopped.Lawrence, then an 18-year-old freshman, was sitting within the back seat on the proper side – the purpose of impact. The automotive door shattered, metal piercing the side of her body. She remained conscious, unaware that her injuries were life-threatening: a ruptured bladder and spleen, lacerated kidneys, a liver injury, a collapsed lung, a fractured pelvis and five broken ribs. The accident disrupted blood flow to her brain and caused a stroke.“I had no idea my life was going away,” she says. “All I knew was that I was trapped. The car felt like a war zone.” Katie was injured but managed to flee. Holly, who was sitting behind the motive force on the left, was thrown from the automotive. Alyssa, who was sitting within the passenger seat, was trapped on account of her injuries.Lawrence remained within the backseat, together with a friend and fellow cheerleader, also named Nicole, who had been sitting in the center. The accident rendered Nicole unconscious. She was partially stretched out on Lawrence's lap.Lawrence tried to comfort Nicole. “I quietly and gently tried to let her know I was there by rubbing her back. Nicole didn’t respond, but I wouldn’t allow myself to think about anything other than us all getting home safely.”They were stuck for half-hour while rescuers cut the automotive roof to remove them. “I was overwhelmed. I really wanted to get out of the car,” Lawrence says. As paramedics loaded her into an ambulance, she also fainted. She later woke as much as the brilliant lights of the emergency room. Lawrence's care was intensive, with seven medical teams tending to her injuries and putting her through multiple surgeries. Her parents, younger brother and clan spent many hours together with her within the hospital. Her friends Katie, Holly and Alyssa came visiting after the treatment. But Nicole never got here.Lawrence was on a ventilator and unable to talk. He managed to scribble “Nicole??” on a bit of paper and provides it to everyone who entered their room. But nobody has shared any news, she says. “I thought she was as badly injured as me or worse. I thought she was paralyzed.”Ten days after the accident, Lawrence was in stable condition and doctors not feared she would die. Eventually, doctors allowed her parents to discuss their friends.“My parents sat at my bed and held my hand. They told me Nicole was gone. She died from the same injuries as me, only more severe. She was buried and my friends said goodbye to her without me. Everyone knew except me.”“Disbelief, pain, anger, confusion”
Nicole's death, which occurred two hours after the operating room accident, plunged Lawrence into survivor's guilt. She says she went through a protracted period of “disbelief, pain, anger, confusion and questions.” “I wondered to death: Why couldn't we leave the intersection a second earlier, or why did we need groceries on Sunday, or why didn't we leave in daylight? I could go on forever, but most of the time it just asks, “Why did Nicole have to die and I got to live?”
The young woman from a loving and close-knit family says the accident plunged her into a protracted period of turmoil.
She left the hospital after a couple of month and spent six weeks recovering at her parents' home. “At first I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t walk and I was far from able to support myself,” she says. At her parents' urging, she sought counseling and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Ultimately, nonetheless, she found social support to be more helpful than therapy for her psychological recovery. She longed to be reunited together with her roommates. “My therapy was that I wanted to be with these girls again.”
Even though they’d only known one another for a short while, the ladies had come together like a family and did every thing together.
Ten weeks after the accident, Lawrence returned to high school – and to an emotional household because the young women handled the trauma. For Lawrence, her roommate's empty bedroom was a continuing reminder of loss. Or a automotive accident on TV would bring back harrowing memories. “I can’t stand the sound of crunching metal,” she says.
Intrusive thoughts and nightmares kept her awake at night. “The accident played like a movie in my head when I was quiet or alone, leaving me restless for hours at night. I saw Nicole’s face in the car and ended up crying to the point of exhaustion that put me to sleep.”
She slept poorly for about nine months. Many nights she lay awake until 4 a.m. since the flashbacks “played like an endless loop,” she says. In her nightmares, she stood outside her body and watched the crash from different angles. At school she was so drained that she fell asleep during an exam.
Unlike some automotive accident victims who stop driving after an accident, Lawrence got back behind the wheel. But left turns initially unsettled her. She says she and her surviving roommates never turned left again on the accident intersection, but as a substitute found other routes.
Memories and pain remain within the midst of healing
Now, seven years later, the 25-year-old says her nightmares and flashbacks are gone. Lawrence's injuries have healed, with some remaining issues. Her back still hurts from the accident and she or he had to provide up ice skating, a passion since childhood.
But for probably the most part, life has returned to normal. She now lives in Columbia, Md., and works for a corporation that sells medical equipment, a job that requires her to drive quite a bit.
But even today, the sound of sirens still brings back memories of that night when five ambulances pulled as much as take every young woman away. “I would do anything to never hear that sound again,” she says.
And in some ways it stays emotionally raw. She says she continues to be afraid of the prospect of losing someone near her. “What if something like this happens to my brother? If something really suddenly happened to someone I loved, I think I will break down. I feel like I can’t do it again.”
She received support from the Trauma Survivors Network, a national group that connects seriously injured individuals with other survivors to assist them get better physically and emotionally. Local groups led by trauma survivors often include individuals with brain or leg injuries or those that have suffered multiple injuries.
“Being a trauma survivor is like starting your life over again, leaving you with your old life and what you do with your new life,” Lawrence says. “In my new life, I am more confident and confident in my faith than ever before.”
But she still thinks in regards to the accident each day.
“Waking up every day and being happy about where I am and where I have been can be a challenge for me,” says Nicole. “I miss what I looked like without scars, I miss being able to skate, I miss not having to think about the accident, and I miss Nicole.”
She says that until the day of the accident, she didn't take into consideration how life could change in a second. “I am so grateful. I value my time so much. I don't do anything that I don't really want to do. I don't think many of my colleagues are capable of such a view of life. When you have to deal with something like that, you grow up pretty quickly.”