Disabled by someone texting while driving, Michigan woman has new mission

From the Journal Register News Service:

Woman paralyzed following accident caused by texting driver.

We've heard the warnings about the dangers of texting and driving. Loretta Strong (pictured) is painful, living proof.

One teen's foolish act turned Loretta's and her family's life around forever. Now a wheelchair user with 24-hour care, she wants tougher laws against texting and driving, and she carries a sign explaining how she got this unfortunate "ride."

Strong and her family remember June 24, 2008, all too well.

Loretta and her husband, Clarence, were driving to Indiana to visit their daughter, Tracy Strong.

What was planned as a typical family visit was dramatically cut short when a teen who was texting while driving collided with the Strongs on I-69 near Coldwater.

"I didn't even see her," Clarence said.

But a truck driver on the same route around the same time was aware of the teen. He nearly had been struck by the distracted girl a few moments before.

Instead of putting the phone down, she continued, and the Strongs were hit.

"She went over the median, overcompensated and she ran into us," Clarence said.

The Strongs' Buick Rendezvous flipped five times, leaving Loretta hanging from her seatbelt. That they were transporting a wooden chest, strapped atop the car, may have been the only thing that prevented the roof of the car from collapsing. It may have even saved their lives, but it did not keep Loretta from becoming paralyzed.

"The whole family has been affected," Clarence said.

Oddly and, they feel, unjustly, the teen walked away with a fine and points on her license. Nothing more.

"My wife couldn't open her eyes for two weeks," Clarence said.

A week after the accident, Loretta discovered she couldn't feel anything below her waist.

More than 18 months later, Loretta is still under 24-hour care, fighting to reclaim some semblance of normalcy, trying to do the things most of us take for granted: standing for a few seconds, making small movements, taking steps.

"The things you take for granted," Loretta said, "I don't know if I'll get it back."

The Strongs, originally from Davison, are living with their daughter, Tina Misoni, in Macomb Township. It was a tough decision to make, but they realized it would be easier to outfit Misoni's house for round-the-clock care, and the Strongs would have access to more medical care.

Loretta suffered broken ribs, sternum and leg, a C2 spinal fracture and endured numerous surgeries, even having rods and coils inserted around her spine to keep it upright and protected.

"I feel like a tin can," Loretta said.

Her spirit was almost broken, but through a lot of support from family, friends and caregivers, as well as some solid progress in therapy in recent weeks, Loretta is determined to fight on.

She's determined not only to bounce back as much as she can, but to stop the careless and deadly behaviors that put her in a wheelchair, possibly for life, and have put others six feet under.

It's been a slow and painful process. Loretta spent months in the hospital and in long-term care, much of it in a haze due to painkillers and multiple surgeries. Misoni recalls a day when her mother began to ask about rustling sounds she was hearing. It came from autumn leaves in the wind.

Loretta was shocked to realize she had lost so many months in the hospital.

"I started in spring, and suddenly it was fall."

As she endures therapy to regain mobility and independence, Loretta is bringing some fight to the game with a message: Don't text and drive.

Once very active, Loretta doesn't get out as much anymore, mostly to doctor appointments and therapy, but thanks to a wheelchair, mobile van and support from family, friends and the care staff at Relevar Home Care, she's venturing out again.

When she noticed that a lot of people were staring, she decided to start sporting a sign.

At first it was just a piece of cardboard attached to the back of her wheelchair. Then Kim DeCew, of Relevar, and one of the 24-hour care staff attending to Loretta, had her husband, who works at a printing company, make a sign.

In bold, black letters on a white background, it reads:

"Don't text & drive.

I'm in this chair.

Don't stare.

I got this ride because someone decided to text & drive.

Don't text & drive."

DeCew said, "The sign stops everybody."

Eye-opening stats

The statistics are alarming on the dangers of texting and driving.

"Text messaging is one of the most dangerous things a driver can do behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Yet, survey after survey shows that an alarming number of drivers do it," AAA Michigan Traffic Safety Manager Jack Peet said in a press release.

There is an effort to get texting while driving banned. The Michigan Senate on Jan. 26 voted in favor of Senate Bill 402, which would make it a secondary offense. Similar legislation has passed the House, but the House and Senate must agree on a final version before it will go to Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The governor has indicated she supports the bill.

AAA Michigan says it supports the ban, but wants a tougher law. Under both House and Senate bills, motorists if stopped for another offense would be cited for texting while driving.

"We continue to work in hopes of it being passed as a primary enforcement offense," Peet said.

AAA Michigan cited a recent Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study in which texting commercial truck drivers raise their risk of crashing by 23 times, or 2,300 percent.

Many Web sites warn of the dangers of texting while driving as well. Dontdriveandtext.org ranks the danger as high as drunken driving. The site adds that cell phone use is responsible for 2,600 fatalities and 300,000 collisions each year.

Seeing is believing, and a lot of people, especially teens, have seen Loretta, read her sign and vowed not to text and drive anymore. The sign gets people to stop, talk and think. A mother once approached Loretta, asking, "Are you the lady who talked to my girls?" The woman's daughters had read the sign and were shaken by its message.

Loretta hopes her message gets across. She started more intensive therapy Jan. 4 and stood up for the first time in over a year. Doctors, watching her progress, went from giving her a 2 percent chance of recovery to telling her they can see her walking again one day.

The former chef at Lake Orion Schools wants to return to schools, this time to teach kids about dangerous behavior.

"I don't want people to feel sorry for me," but "my life has been put on hold. I'm not happy with that. I'm doubly imprisoned," she said.

"If I can make a difference in this, then that's what I want to do."