Tackabery Chronicle

While few studies have been done on the link between car accidents and PTSD, the last study sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2000 found that as many as 40% of people seriously injured in a car accident suffered post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms during the first year of the crash. Luckily with treatment most of those sufferers can move forward without long-term damage, but about 5% of seriously injured car accident victims will still suffer from PTSD five years or more after the original accident. 

And, if the victim already has PTSD? Well, you know they say when it rains, it pours …

In the spring of 2004 Richard and I were struck from behind by a woman who was rushing out of a gas station into traffic on Glenwood Avenue north in Raleigh. We were stopped in traffic, and the impact forced our Toyota Corolla to collide with a large Dodge SUV stopped in front of us. My seat belt and seat broke and I was trapped in the car. Upon admittance to the hospital I was diagnosed with whiplash and contusions, and underwent physical therapy for three months for my injuries. The psychiatric treatment is still ongoing.

The wreck was my third in Raleigh; the first two involved turning left in traffic and being struck by vehicles coming from the other direction. One, which took place on Walnut Street in Cary, was probably the most traumatic of my life and involved being crushed by the steering wheel, severe bruising of my chest, an extended hospital stay, and worst of all, the mistaken belief that I had killed someone for several hours because the person who I collided with had gotten out of their vehicle, so that when I looked over I saw an empty truck and thought the person had been thrown from their car and was dead.

To this day when we are stopped at a light I can feel an impact in my right shoulder, and when I have to turn left I anticipate breaking glass and impact from the front. Even thinking about it now makes me anxious, and I am safe in my living room with a cat curled up on the arm of the couch, warm at my shoulder purring at me. In diagnostic terms it’s called “a deepened sense of threat.” It’s perfectly illogical. But it’s a door I can’t close, ever. In my less lucid moments I want to throttle my dead father for starting all of this. But my father is only dust in the wind.