Another Victim Of A Drunk Driver !

My name is Jennie and I am a victim of an underage drunk driver. The crash happened on April 23rd of 2000. My husband Mac and I had been out of town at a friends house doing some work on his truck. Before we could leave a very large storm moved through the area, so we decided to wait till the storm was over to leave. It was around 1:30 in the morning before it was over. I don't like being on the road that late, but that morning was Easter Sunday. We needed to get home to the kids, so we went. We were driving on Highway 80 in Mesquite Texas, and the drunk driver and his sober passenger were on a local side street, that came to a dead-end onto the service road of the highway. The drunk and the passenger were fighting. The passenger wanted the drunk to pull over and let him drive, but he would not. Instead he drove and was supposed to yield at a yield sign, but he came to a complete stop and then floored it. He jumped the little concrete curb that the sign was on and ran over the sign. He then jumped the curb of the service road and flew in the air off of the service road and the 30 foot embankment and onto the highway and into us. He hit us head on and my side(the passenger side). Mac was pinned in the truck and had to he cut out. He had three broken ribs, a cut on his chin and a large puncture wound to his leg and a broken finger. We learned years later he had actually fractured his femur head and had to have a hip replacement in January of 2018. I was ejected (seat-belt broke) onto the highway, I landed right in the middle of the two vehicles. I suffered many serious injuries. I had two breaks to my sternum, a crushed pelvis, and broke both femurs. I was taken to the nearest trauma center in Dallas, called Baylor University Medical Center of Dallas. I then went into emergency surgery for about eight hours to repair my legs. The surgeon put a steel rod in my right leg and removed the broken bone chips (lost over an inch of bone) and put plates and screws in my left leg just above the knee and extend upward, stops just below my hip. This break pinched the femoral artery and the surgeon wasn't sure he could save this leg due to the damage. I spent the next four weeks in ICU with three weeks and four of those days on a respirator and in a coma. A few days after the crash the doctors realized that the tissue and skin in my legs was dying. This is called shearing, and was caused when the flesh was torn loose from the muscle and its blood supply at the impact. I had six operations cutting this dead flesh out. Then another operation almost a month later to do skin graphs to close up the holes in both legs. Due to all these surgeries and the crash I was given a total of fifteen units of blood during these weeks. I was listed as critical and my family was being told that the doctors did not know if they could save either one of my legs or my life for all of those three and a half weeks. I did not have surgery on my pelvis because I was in the coma and immobile. The doctor said it would heal fine that way. Finally I woke up and was weaned off of the respirator. I was moved to a room on the orthopedic floor and was there for another five weeks. I was then moved to a rehab hospital. I spent another four weeks living there learning to situp, stand, and walk again. When I was released I still had to go to out patient rehab three days a week for four to five hours per day. I did this for 8 months, then had to go twice a week for two to three hours per day and did this for another three months. I went from a bed, to a wheelchair, to a walker and now must walk with a cane unless in my own home. I had 8 surgeries total. I have permanent nerve damage in my left foot caused by the repair of the femoral artery, along with a dropped arch and rotated outward foot. My right leg is over an inch shorter, that causes a severe limp and back issues. I still have a lot of pain, and a lot of trouble walking. I have swelling problems and have developed Heterotopic bone buildup. It is a calcium formation that formed at all break sights. It has caused my right knee not to bend and is a knot the size of a large grapefruit.