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Former Oakville woman lives with her past mistakes by Dominik Kurek Oakville Beaver Staff 19 | Wednesday, May 15, 2013 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com Approximately 350 high school students from across Canada spent three days at Sheridan College to learn about the dangers of drinking and driving at a conference late last week. The Canadian Youth Against Impaired Driving (CYAID) event was hosted by the Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID). It featured activities, workshops, presentations, as well as socializing for the youths. On Friday, the group heard from former Oakville resident Sheri-Lyn Roberts who experienced firsthand the dangers of drinking and driving when she was an 18-year-old passenger in a car that crashed on the highway. Roberts barely survived and is now paralyzed from the chest down. "We all have regrets. We say the wrong thing, or get into a fight with a friend or drink too much, cut someone off when driving," she told students in Macdonald-Heaslip Hall. "Many things you regret doing, you get a chance to fix, you can make it right the next time. But, there are some things you do that can never be undone and, like me, you have to live the rest of your life knowing you made a bad choice." Roberts was speaking as part of a No Regrets Live presentation, by Parachute Canada, which delivers life-saving programming. Roberts said she learned the hard way each person is responsible for his or her life. "In almost every case where someone is hurt or killed, it's not an accident. Events that cause injuries are almost always predictable and that's good because it means you can prevent them." Her injury was caused by accident, but it was both predictable and preventable, she said. In 1998, Roberts was a high school graduate headed to Sheridan College to study business administration. She was taking time off and in the early winter, she and some friends went to a Mississauga night club, using fake ids. They met guys, partied and then left early and called a cab, but it did not arrive. They accepted when their new male friends offered a ride. Roberts said she asked the driver if he had been drinking, and he replied he was OK. She said he didn't look drunk. Seven people squeezed into a two-door, four-seat car and drove off. They passed an OPP car on the side of the road and the passengers ducked their heads. The driver took the highway and during a lane change, the car's wheels hit the gravel side. "The car started shaking. It was kind of like when you're going up a roller coaster. I felt that vibrating feeling through my whole body," Roberts said. Then the car flipped and it rolled over seven times. "I was thrown out the back window of the car on one of the flips. I was holding onto (a male passenger's) arm so tightly that I actually pulled him out the window with me. I landed face down in a ditch and he landed right on top of me." Sheri-Lyn Roberts She was taken to a Mississauga hospital by ambulance, lost her heart rate and breathing, but was resuscitated and a tube was put in so she could breathe. Roberts was later air lifted to a Toronto trauma centre and was not expected to live through the night. Both her legs were broken, with the bone of one of them coming out through her jeans. She broke a femur, hip, her pelvis, 12 ribs, her back in two places and her neck. Both her lungs were punctured and she had a serious head injury. Despite the grim injuries, she began healing well, but after contracting a cold from a friend, her condition worsened. "That's the worst thing that you can do when someone's in the ICU, especially if they have bad lungs like I had," Roberts said. "I got her cold, which turned into pneumonia, then both my lungs collapsed. They put chest tubes in and eventually a trachea and then hooked me up to life support and then it just started downhill." On Christmas Day her parents were told she would not make it to New Year's. But thanks to a nurse, whom Roberts called amazing, she began to recover. "She took me from death's door on Christmas Day to, on New Year's Day, getting discharged from the ICU," Roberts said. "It was amazing. Every day she would make me do breathing exercises that I hated her for and made me do all this extra trachea care that was so painful. But she'd say, `You'll be so happy when you don't have this big, gnarly scar.'" After three weeks in intensive care, Roberts spent six months in rehab. Having lost all control of her body below her chest, she had to relearn everything again, from sitting up in her wheelchair to going to the washroom. Roberts, now lives in Cambridge, earned degree in economics, married, had a child and started a business. If she could walk again, she would, but wouldn't trade it for her life now, Roberts told students. Roberts acknowledged people will continue to take risks, but asked the students to understand where to draw the line and advised them to buckle up, look first, wear the gear, get trained and drive sober. Claudette Ross, a 16-year-old from Sault Ste. Marie, said, "I learned how to be responsible and to take smart risks," she said. B O X I N G D AY I N M AY ! th Lights on at 12am Saturday May 18 Doors open at 6am Bring Your Friends & ARRIVE EARLY ! · Win a $500 Gift Card! · Mystery Door Crasher Specials! · Great Deals Throughout The Entire Store! Come early, quantities limited, offers valid while quantities last. Gift Cards for the 1st 50 families (one $500 gift card will be awarded at each location) DOOR CRASHERS www.terragreenhouses.com 2 Gal. 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