November 10, 2016 – It was purported to be an easy Sunday evening trip to the food market.After shopping, Nicole Lawrence and her 4 Penn State roommates got into Lawrence's Honda Civic and drove home. Her friend Katie was driving. As Katie turned left at the underside of a hill, a speeding automotive with no lights on approached her at the hours of darkness.The young women screamed because the Honda flew over the hill and struck the side of their small automotive. The Honda spun thrice, hit a curb and got here to a stop.Lawrence, then an 18-year-old freshman, was sitting in the proper back seat – the location of impact. The automotive door crushed, 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 lacerated liver, a collapsed lung, a shattered pelvis and five broken ribs. The impact cut off blood flow to her brain and caused a stroke.”I had no idea how my life was melting away,” she says. “All I knew was that I was trapped. In the car, I felt like I was in a war zone.” Katie was injured but managed to get away on foot. Holly, who was sitting to the left of the driving force, was thrown from the automotive. Alyssa, who was sitting within the passenger seat, was trapped on account of her injuries.Lawrence stayed within the back seat with a friend and fellow cheerleader, also named Nicole, who had been sitting in the center. The impact knocked Nicole unconscious. She was lying half-stretched on Lawrence's lap.Lawrence tried to comfort Nicole. “I tried to quietly and gently show her I was there by stroking her back. Nicole didn't respond, but I didn't allow myself to think about anything other than us all getting home safely.”They were stuck for half-hour while paramedics cut open the roof of the automotive to free them. “I was overwhelmed. I wanted to get out of the car so badly,” says Lawrence. As paramedics loaded her into an ambulance, she too lost consciousness. She later woke up in the brilliant lights of the emergency room. Lawrence's care was intensive: seven teams of doctors tended to her injuries and put her through quite a few operations. Her parents, younger brother and clan spent many hours along with her within the hospital. Her friends Katie, Holly and Alyssa came around after the treatment. But Nicole never got here.Lawrence was on a ventilator and unable to talk. She managed to scribble “Nicole??” on a chunk of paper and hand it to anyone who entered her room. But nobody had any news, she says. “I thought she was as badly injured as I was, or worse. I thought she was paralyzed.”Ten days after the accident, Lawrence's condition was stable and doctors not feared that she would die. Doctors finally allowed her parents to speak about their friends.”My parents sat by my bed and held my hand. They told me Nicole had died. She died from the same injuries as me, only worse. 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 within the operating room two hours after the accident, left Lawrence feeling guilty. She went through a protracted period of “disbelief, pain, anger, confusion and questions,” she says. “I wondered to death: Why couldn't we have left the intersection a second earlier, why did we need groceries on Sunday, why didn't we leave in daylight? I could go on forever, but mostly it's just, 'Why did Nicole have to die and I got to live?'”
The young woman, who comes from a loving and close-knit family, says the accident has 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' house. “Initially, I couldn't eat, couldn't walk, and was far from being independent,” she says. At her parents' urging, she underwent therapy and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Ultimately, nonetheless, she found that social support was more helpful for her mental health recovery than therapy. She longed to be reunited along with her roommates. “My therapy was that I wanted to be with those girls again.”
Although that they had only known one another for a short while, the ladies had grown together like a family and did every part together.
Ten weeks after the accident, Lawrence returned to high school – and to an emotional household where the young women needed to process the trauma. For Lawrence, her roommate's empty bedroom was a continuing reminder of the loss. Or a automotive crash on television triggered horrific memories. “I can't stand the sound of grinding metal,” she says.
Intrusive thoughts and nightmares kept her awake at night. “When I was quiet or alone, the accident would play like a film in my head, making me restless for hours at night. I would see Nicole's face in the car and eventually cry until I was so exhausted that I fell asleep.”
For about nine months she slept badly. Many nights she lay awake until 4 a.m. since the flashbacks “played like a loop,” she says. In her nightmares she stood outside her body and watched the accident 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 turning left was initially unsettling for her. She and her surviving roommates never turned left on the intersection where the accident occurred again, she says, but as an alternative sought other routes.
Memories and pain remain during healing
Now, seven years later, the 25-year-old says her nightmares and flashbacks have disappeared. Lawrence's injuries have healed, but some problems remain. Her back still hurts from the accident and he or she had to offer up ice skating, a passion she has had since childhood.
But for probably the most part, her 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 loads.
But even now, the wail of the sirens still brings back memories of that night, when five ambulances arrived to take each of the young women away. “I would do anything to never hear that sound again,” she says.
And in some ways, she's still emotionally shaken. She's still afraid of losing someone near her, she says. “What if something like that happens to my brother? If something happens to someone I love all of a sudden, I think I'll break. I feel like I can't do it again.”
She has received support from the Trauma Survivors Network, a national group that connects severely injured individuals with other survivors to assist them recuperate physically and emotionally. Local groups run by trauma survivors often include individuals with brain or leg injuries, or those that have suffered multiple injuries.
“Surviving trauma is like starting your life over, so you're left with your old life and what you make of your new life,” says Lawrence. “In my new life, I'm more confident and rely on my faith than ever before.”
Nevertheless, she still thinks in regards to the accident day by day.
“Waking up every day and being happy about where I am and where I've been can be challenging for me,” Nicole says. “I miss looking like I don't have 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 hadn't considered how life can change in a second. “I'm so grateful. I really value my time. I don't do anything I don't really want to do. I don't think many of my peers are capable of having that outlook on life. When you have to deal with something like that, you grow up pretty quickly.”