Sleepy girl takes chances; Friend nearly dies

It happened nearly 10 years ago, but to William Shaw the morning his daughter died twice after a car crash in the Cascade Mountains was yesterday.

“It never goes away,” he said last week.

Because of the pain he and his family suffered, William and his wife, Mary Beth Haggerty-Shaw, have dedicated themselves to drowsy driving awareness and prevention.

One of the Shaws’ activities is op-ed pieces like the one in today’s paper. It was written to coincide with Washington State Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, which Gov. Jay Inslee has proclaimed for Nov. 1-8.

I encourage you to read the guest editorial and think about drowsy driving. You’ve done it and gotten away with it. But it’s a big risk.

I have several locations, including the official Vernita rest stop, where I pause when I tire on my drives between the Yakima Valley and the Royal Slope.

William’s daughter, Mora, was coming home to the Seattle area over Blewett Pass in the front passenger seat of a car her friend was driving. There was another friend seated behind the driver.

The driver had not slept for more than 20 hours but kept on driving. Near the pass, she fell asleep and crashed.

The greatest impact was on the right front of the car. The right front wheel ended up practically in Mora’s lap. Her legs were saved by the fact she’d had her feet on the dashboard.

The other two girls, teens like Mora, were injured, but they were able to exit the car and get medical attention from emergency responders. Mora could not get out. The car was all around her.

About that time, Carly Norwood, an area resident and a trauma nurse, came by with her son Dylan. She always stops at these scenes to she if she can help. This time she didn’t.

Dylan questioned her sternly, but she said soon they’d see help coming up the pass. Dylan wouldn’t buy it.

“Mom you’ve got to turn around,” Dylan begged. She did.

Carly believed Mora was dying, but she snaked her way through the wreckage to the girl and did a couple of things that allowed her to keep breathing.

Another person who stopped offered her cellphone. Carly called Airlift Northwest. She had a helicopter at the site before other responders could arrive.

Mora was all broken up, internally and externally. Full recovery took two years. She has her bad moments, William said, but she works and keeps busy in other ways.

What William remembers most about that early morning is that the nurse thought Mora would die in hours or just minutes and that Mora was resuscitated once in the helicopter and once at Harborview Medical Center.

He wishes that no one would have to go through that ever again.