We survived a head-on crash on Alligator Alley. I’m counting the ways I am grateful

Thanksgiving this year brings me way more in the way of gratitude. On June 23, the day before the horror of the Surfside condo catastrophe, my family suffered its own personal trauma.

On our way to Naples for our first post-pandemic getaway, we were slammed head-on by a careless driver on Alligator Alley. The day was slightly overcast but not yet rainy, and the traffic on the four-lane divided highway was light; we figured we’d be on the “left coast” by lunchtime. Michael and I had driven from Bay Harbor to Weston where our youngest daughter and her girlfriend would join us for the vaycay.

We were about an hour into the drive, enjoying the conversation and anticipating the reservations we had made for activities on land and water.

IT ALL CHANGED

And then, our world stopped. I remember seeing a car heading east leave the roadway. I remember thinking: ‘Why would someone be driving on the grass?’

The next thing I remember is the crash.

Our car was totaled, but we “walked away.” The car filled with what I thought was smoke — it was the airbag dust. I yelled for the girls to get out of the car thinking it would explode at any moment in a fiery conflagration. I yelled into the SOS mic, “Help!”

While the girls were able to open their doors, mine was jammed and I struggled to push it open. My daughter, Robin, and her friend, Shawn, ran to my side and together pulled my door open and pulled me out. I called to my husband sitting in the back seat; he didn’t answer. The girls then pulled Michael out of the airbags that engulfed him.

So, what am I thankful for this year? Let me count the ways:

I am thankful that we were driving a big-bully of an SUV.

I am thankful that my daughter, at 27 years my junior, was driving, likely with better reflexes than her mother.

I am so grateful for the good Samaritans who stopped to help: a car full of corrections officers from Sarasota; a Florida Highway Patrol trooper who really seemed to care and even came to check on us at the Naples Community Hospital; the Emergency Service team from Collier County; the area doctors, nurses and technicians who managed our care in the emergency room and trauma ward as if we were their neighbors.

And mostly, I am eternally grateful for, truly, a good Samaritan who called herself “an angel sent from God.”

THE GIFT OF HELPERS

Janet Pagan, a young woman from Tampa, with two young sons in her car, stopped to help. Without so much as a by-yourleave, she pulled beach chairs from her trunk and pushed Michael and me into them. She hovered nearby as if to further protect us until medical help arrived.

And because Robin and Shawn weren’t going to be transported and the car was undrivable and a FHP trooper said “someone” would have to come out from Miami to Immokalee to retrieve them, this incredible young woman packed the girls and the luggage into her car and drove them to the hospital in Naples! Indeed, Janet was a gift from above that day!

The upshot: The airbags and seat belts saved our lives, but the airbags and seat belts also caused our injuries.

We are five months out from the accident. Michael’s multiple sternum fractures have healed without surgery. Robin, Shawn and I are still dealing with the fallout from our injuries which, thankfully, are not life-threatening. But, the repercussions of those injuries continue to impact our daily lives.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful that we survived the crash. Our FHP trooper called it a “miracle.”