Our 17 year old daughter Mora Shaw was a 2006 graduate from Issaquah High School. She was ready to start college and attend Western Washington University in Bellingham. Mora looked forward to a future of learning, making new friends, to traveling the world and finding her own way in life. Until the morning of July 18, 2006.
Mora was a passenger in a car traveling on the Blewett Pass highway in Washington. The friend who was driving the vehicle had stayed awake the entire night before and fell asleep at the wheel. The car drifted off the road and crashed. Mora suffered multiple broken bones, collapsed lungs and traumatic brain injuries. Three passers by, one a trauma nurse - tried to save her fading life. While the aid crews and State Patrol quickly converged on the scene, Mora quietly expired. Miraculously, a minute or so later she began to again register vital signs while the nurse and aid crew worked frantically to get her out of t he wreckage.
Mora’s spirit again drifted back and forth between life and death. She was resuscitated from death in-flight on the Airlift Northwest chopper and again in the Harborview E.R. As we learned of her massive injuries at Harborview TICU, my wife Mary Beth and I began to live every parent’s nightmare.
Agonizing over Mora’s many broken bones was quickly eclipsed when we were told by the trauma specialists that they did not to expect her to live - to make plans for Mora’s funeral. They later confirmed that Mora was in a coma and had suffered significant brain damage. If she survived, it was unknown if she would ever gain consciousness. If she recovered, they did not know if she would be a vegetable, or have the facility of a third grader. It got worse. Even with her fractured shoulder-blade, breastbone, ribs, pelvis, sacrum, leg and crushed ankle, the orthopedic surgeons were unable to do the desperately needed surgeries because of the swelling in her brain.
Despite all the odds, four hellish weeks and three surgeries later, Mora survived. With a battered body and mind, she spent the next three months healing in a body cast. As she tried to regain her memory back, Mora also had to re-learn all the simple things she was taught as a child – to eat, talk, wash, dress, read, write, and eventually, walk.
Mora has fought with steely determination and true grit to regain her old self back. She is dealing with some cognitive deficits and faces yet more surgery to try and save her crushed ankle. With luck, Mora will be looking forward to regaining a more of her old life in the fall. But it will never be the same. All because one young adult decided to drive 182 miles with no sleep the night before.
The summer following graduation from high school is a pivotal time for our 17 and 18 year olds. It is their last chance to enjoy life before college, jobs and the pursuit of careers and family take up the paths of their lives. Our young adults will spend the rest of this summer working, playing and getting together and partying with their old high school friends. As they do so, every teen and parent is aware of the dangers of drinking and driving.
When you remind your young adult children about the dangers of drinking and driving, please also educate them about the dangers of driving while drowsy or fatigued. Their lives may depend on it.
