You remind yourself, but also try not to dwell on, how quickly one mistake by one driver could spell disaster.  Vehicles following too closely at high speeds can plow into one another in long chains of rear-enders.  A lane change at high speed that side swipes an adjacent oncoming vehicle can create havoc. Witnessing a crash or its aftermath is not an uncommon experience in freeway driving.

 

One of Canada’s worst highway disasters occurred on the 401—Canada’s largest and busiest freeway—in south-western Ontario on September 3rd, 1999.  An unusual ‘cotton-ball fog’ rolling through an otherwise clear dry morning set up a chain reaction of crashes.  The National Post reported: “The pile up involved 87 vehicles, including up to a dozen tractor-trailers, and the line of wreckage stretched for about two kilometers along Highway 401.  At its center, 15 cars and 5 tractor-trailers collided before being consumed in flames.  Many of the victims, still trapped in their twisted vehicles, some with roofs sheared off, made desperate, dying pleas as their autos caught fire.  This was the worst motor vehicle accident in Canadian history. It killed 8, and injured 45.”

 

Ute Lawrence, a middle-aged business woman driving with her husband to a business meeting in Detroit, Michigan was trapped deep in the wreckage but rescued by a truck driver responding to the screams of a nearby 14-year-old girl, ultimately one of the eight fatalities.  Although miraculously physically unharmed save for a few scratches, mentally and emotionally she was profoundly changed.  Formerly positive, upbeat, goal-oriented and high achieving she gave up her magazine publishing business and isolated herself.  “For about five years, I didn’t have any goals,” she says. “I had lost my belief system. I didn’t believe I could get anything done.”

 

Ms. Lawrence was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.  Military combat is perhaps the most commonly identified cause of PTSD, but violent personal assaults and natural or human-caused disasters are also triggers.

 

Once this diagnosis was made, Ute Lawrence began a successful course of treatment that motivated her to learn as much as she could about the disorder and ultimately to establish the PTSD Association, the first of its kind in North America.  She has also written two books about PTSD, The Power of Trauma and Power up Your Performance: The Seven Secrets to Achieving Anything.  The PTSD Association website is www.ptsdassociation.com.