Episode 36: Conversation with Lisa Mary (Crash Survivor’s Perspective)

Lisa Mary:

I felt like I was on top of the world, cloud nine, and at that show where I opened for Toby Keith, there was someone in the audience, and he really liked the show. He asked me to come out and play an acoustic private show for his water sports company. We were well on our way, almost there, and we were on a little two-lane highway. There was a pickup truck in the other lane, and we ended up getting into a head-on collision with the pickup.

David Craig:

I am attorney Dave Craig, Managing Partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley, and Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured, who have had a family member killed, in a semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often, they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. In each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. This is After the Crash.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After the Crash. Today, I am extraordinarily excited and I feel very fortunate to have Dawne McKay back on the program, as well as Lisa Mary. Today’s episode is a little bit different. Occasionally, we do a crash victim’s perspective. I think that’s extraordinarily important because too many people go through these situations, they have a crash with a semi tractor trailer or a pickup truck, a car, whatever, and unfortunately, it’s the first time they’ve ever gone through anything like this. They don’t know what to expect. They don’t know if their feelings are normal. They don’t know anything about this, and it’s overwhelming. You listen to doctors, you listen to lawyers, and that’s overwhelming. So, this podcast is geared for regular, ordinary folks who have the unfortunate bad luck to be put in a situation like this.

So, occasionally we’d like to do from a victim’s perspective. Dawne McKay, some of you may remember, was on episode 11 of After the Crash. If you want to go back and hear her story, I would encourage you to go back and look at episode 11. It’s on YouTube, and you can see Dawne’s story. Dawne is an extraordinary person who also is a survivor of a crash who has written a book that I give out to my clients. It’s called Talk Crash to Me, and she also is the founder of Crash Support Network which helps connect crash survivors so they have a place to go and talk and communicate with each other, and she does wonderful, wonderful work. Lisa has joined that group and is part of that network. So Dawne, thank you again for what you do for victims of crashes, and thank you for being a guest on this podcast.

Dawne McKay:

Well, thank you, David. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m so glad that you and Lisa have connected. She’s a wonderful human being with a wonderful story, and I thank you for taking this opportunity to allow us a platform to talk this morning.

David Craig:

Before we talk to Lisa about her story, tell the folks where and how they can reach out to the Crash Support Network.

Dawne McKay:

Sure. The crashsupportnetwork.com is online, of course. It consists of an online support group on Facebook. It’s also a quarterly newsletter that I publish every quarter with lots of informative articles. I also blog through my own personal experience. That can all be found at crashsupportnetwork.com. Anyone out there that is either recovering from a crash or maybe you have a loved one that is struggling and looking for a place for support, I would highly recommend letting them know about crashsupportnetwork.com.

David Craig:

Fantastic. I would highly recommend it. Lisa, I’m so honored to have you here. Lisa is a singer, a songwriter. She has an inspiring story, and she’s really working hard to help other survivors. She’s very good musician. Some of you may be familiar with her. I think you played at the Grand Ole Opry before.

Lisa Mary:

Sure have.

David Craig:

You’ve opened for Toby Keith, and so tell us a little bit about yourself. Before we talk about your story, just introduce yourself.

Lisa Mary:

First off, thank you so much for having me. My name is Lisa Mary. I’m a country singer-songwriter. I’ve been at this for over 10 years now. Like you said, I’ve played at the Grand Ole Opry, and I write my own music. I’ve got songs out on Spotify and Apple Music, all that good stuff.

David Craig:

So your story, I know you were on your way up back in 2017. Let’s talk about before the crash. Tell me a little bit about your life and where you were going and what your aspirations were and how that was going prior to this horrible, horrible wreck that occurred in July of 2017.

Lisa Mary:

Prior to the crash, I had been working on my first album, which I worked on for about two years. I ended up releasing that album on July 7th of 2017, and on that very same day, I got to open up for Toby Keith. Literally, I just felt like I was on top of the world, cloud nine. At that show where I opened for Toby Keith, there was someone in the audience, and he really liked the show. He owned a water sports company, and he asked me to come out and play an acoustic private show for his water sports company. That’s when it happened.

David Craig:

So, you were on your way. I know you were with your mother and your grandfather, and you were a passenger, and you were on your way, as I remember, heading to Lake Superior. Is that where the concert was to be?

Lisa Mary:

Yeah, so the city is Grand Marais, and it was supposed to be right on Lake Superior. So we were heading up that way. We had already passed over the Mackinaw Bridge. We were well on our way, almost there. We were on a little two-lane highway and there was a pickup truck in the other lane, and we ended up getting into a head-on collision with the pickup.

David Craig:

I know that it was a catastrophic wreck. What do you remember about the wreck because I’ve talked to a lot of clients over the 35 years that I’ve been doing this, or over 35 years. I think because we’re not prepared for it, and it’s such a horrific event, but a lot of times we’re confused, bewildered in shock. Tell me a little bit about what was going on when you realized you’d been in a crash.

Lisa Mary:

I vividly remember I ended up, I was in the backseat, and I made the horrible decision that I have never made since that day of not wearing a seatbelt. So, I flew across the backseat. I slammed my shoulder into the window, and then I went and slammed my head into the other window. When the crash had stopped, when the vehicle had stopped, I had pushed myself up and I just remember the truck being embedded into our vehicle and my grandfather and my mom were just completely still, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was just in complete shock. I actually blacked out after that. The car was on fire, and I was the last one out.

David Craig:

I know that you woke up along the side of the road.

Lisa Mary:

Yeah, my mom actually crawled out of the window, and she pulled me out of the car with all of the willpower that she had in that moment. We ended up on the side of the road, and all I remember is just a bunch of police officers and the fire department was there and just being overwhelmed with all of the questions. It was quite traumatic.

David Craig:

I know that, again, from talking to folks that have been through this, that it is overwhelming when all these people are asking you questions and it’s kind of a blur. You don’t really know what’s going on.

Lisa Mary:

Yeah, absolutely.

David Craig:

Tell me then, what happened next?

Lisa Mary:

What happened next? We ended up being transported to the hospital and we were in the middle of nowhere. We were six hours away from home, and I remember being in the back of this ambulance and thinking, no one knows where we are, what’s happened. I need to get to a phone, and that was all I could think about is that someone needs to know where we are and what happened and that all of us are hurt. We ended up going to the hospital.

David Craig:

I know that it has to be tough to see your mom, see your grandfather, as well as you’re obviously suffering. Were you in a lot of pain at that time?

Lisa Mary:

I was in a lot of pain at that time, and what really scared me is I really didn’t know what was going on with my family. They took us all in separate ambulances, and at the time, I said that I was on the side of the road, I was on the side of the road with my mom. My grandfather, who at the time was 70 years old, he was on the opposite side of the freeway. So the entire time, I had no idea what his injuries were, how he was feeling, how he was doing, and I just remember being in the hospital asking every nurse that walked in the door, “How’s my mom? How’s my grandpa? What’s going on?” I was clueless. I think that was one of the hardest parts about being in the hospital and being in that moment.

David Craig:

Probably another hard thing is I know you at some point had to reach out to your dad. He wasn’t with you. I think that had to be a very hard conversation.

Lisa Mary:

It really was. I ended up getting a phone from one of the nurses, and I know my dad’s number by heart, so I dialed it up. I picked up the phone and he answered, and I just immediately started crying, and my dad ended up telling me after the fact that he was just sitting on the bed and he ended up falling to the ground. He just knew that something was wrong and the nurse ended up taking the phone out of my hand and telling my dad that we had all been in this horrible crash.

David Craig:

How long were you in the hospital?

Lisa Mary:

I was in the hospital until about two o’clock in the morning, so I was released fairly quickly, but I was in and out of the hospital for a few weeks after the fact, but my mom was in the hospital for over a month and my grandpa was in the hospital for about two weeks.

David Craig:

I think your grandpa was so bad that they actually removed him, took him to a different hospital.

Lisa Mary:

They did. The nurses at the hospital that we were at, they had told me that they needed to life lift him because he had four bleeds to the brain, and again, this was a really small hospital. When I say small, I mean literally the three of us were the only people that could fit in the emergency room. That was it. This was a very small place. They ended up taking him to another hospital downstate, and I just pleaded with the doctors and the nurses. I wasn’t sure what was going on and what was happening and how my grandpa was doing. I pleaded with them to have him just escorted to my hospital room for a moment just so I could say goodbye in case that was the last time I ever saw him, because in the moment that’s really how I felt. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to see him again.

David Craig:

What injuries did you suffer?

Lisa Mary:

Yeah, so most of my injuries came to my right shoulder. I had a partial tear to my rotator cuff. I tore most of the ligaments in my shoulder. I broke my collarbone. A week later I actually got up out of bed and I fell over a bowling pin, and I ended up going back to the hospital and they diagnosed me with post-concussive syndrome. I struggled with that for a couple months after the fact.

David Craig:

I think for those people who don’t know, I mean a concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury. When you have a mild traumatic brain injury, oftentimes it goes undiagnosed in the ER because it doesn’t show up on a CT scan. So, you can have a mild traumatic brain injury and not be detected, and then you start having post-concussive symptoms and that’s when it’s often diagnosed.

Lisa Mary:

It was seven days after, for me. I completely blacked out. The doctors had told me that my brain had swelled up so much during the crash that it took a minute for the swelling to go down for the concussion to settle in.

David Craig:

What kind of symptoms did you have with the post-concussive? Did you have the headaches or the dizziness or vertigo?

Lisa Mary:

I definitely struggled with dizziness. I would be in bed, I would just be laying down, and then if I were to get up, my vision would be a little bit spotty. I would get a little bit dizzy, and sometimes I could take a few steps and just black out. It was something that happened really frequently, especially in the beginning.

David Craig:

How about your memory and cognitively, were you fine there or did you have issues with that?

Lisa Mary:

I was fine there, and I was really grateful to be fine in that department.

David Craig:

I think that oftentimes I talk to clients and they have a survivor guilt or they have a guilt, even though they didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes when they’re, like you, that the trip, maybe they’re heading somewhere because of them. They feel guilty because like, “We wouldn’t have been on this road if we hadn’t been for me.” Did you have any of that?

Lisa Mary:

You nailed it, actually. That is exactly how I felt. For me, this was going to be an overnight trip because I live in metro Detroit. The trip to Grand Marais was going to be, I want to say about seven hours, and we were going to be there so late into the night that I just didn’t feel comfortable at 20 years old, just staying there on my own. I wanted to have somebody with me. My mom and my grandpa volunteered to come with me, and the only reason that they were in the car in the first place, the reason that any of us were in the car in the first place, was because I had a show, because of me. For a long time, I really struggled with that feeling of guilt, that the only reason that two people that I love so much have injuries, one of my mom’s, hers is lifelong, and a part of me felt like that happened because of me. Like I said, I think you nailed it, your description.

David Craig:

I know that the thing that I’m excited to share with people is that you didn’t let this part of the story be the ending. You didn’t let this part of the story define you. I think that’s real important for survivors to understand that they may be different after a wreck like this. They may have different feelings, they may have different injuries, they may still have things that remind them, but that through perseverance, through faith, everybody’s journey’s different, but that’s one of the things I would like to talk about.

One of the things that struck me when I read about you and your story was, too, that how important it was that there was somebody at the scene who kneeled with you and held your hand and tried to comfort you. I see that a lot. Good Samaritans. People are overall generally good. I like to believe that, and people come to the scene. How important was that to you, that somebody took the time, stopped, kneeled with you, prayed with you, held your hand?

Lisa Mary:

This woman, her name was Nancy Davis. I will never forget it. Like I had mentioned earlier, there were so many firemen and police officers on the scene and I was being asked so many questions and given so many names, but out of everybody that was there that day, this woman sticks out in my mind above all. She just was a witness of the crash, to my knowledge. She came right up to me on the side of the road and she held my hand and she prayed with me. It just meant so much to me in that moment that I had someone there for me, even though it was someone that I didn’t even know. To this day, this woman is in my prayers, and I would give anything to just buy her a coffee, you know what I mean, and say thank you. I’m probably never going to be able to do that because she was just a random stranger. She has no idea how much that means to me.

David Craig:

I think that support, whether it’s at the scene or support following when we’re trying to recover, is extraordinarily important. Talk to me about who supported you and how that was important.

Lisa Mary:

There’s three people. My dad actually traveled to the Upper Peninsula when we were all in the hospital with my Aunt Kelly, and she was super helpful just being there for us. For the first three months of the crash, I was placed on 24-hour care, and basic things like going to the bathroom and taking a shower and going to the kitchen were things that I struggled with at that time. She was really helpful in that department for me. My dad was there for me every step of the way. Also, my boyfriend at the time was there for me every single day. We had only known each other for about eight months at that time. He encouraged me. The first months were the hardest, but after about month three of recovery, he encouraged me every day, “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s try to…” He tried to lift my spirits. That meant so much to me at the time, and now we’re married. We just got married six weeks ago.

David Craig:

Congratulations.

Lisa Mary:

Thank you.

David Craig:

I think that’s so important that we, first of all, that we let people help us. I think sometimes, people try to do it on their own, and I think, first of all, it is important that we have people that help us and that we let people help us. It sounds like you had a great support group. I know it couldn’t have been easy, to suffer physically and mentally and emotionally. Walk me through the journey of how did you survive it? How did you get to where you’re at today? How important was music to you? How important was this delivering a message or making a difference?

Lisa Mary:

Music has always been my outlet for me to write how I’m feeling and get through whatever it is that I’m feeling, and it was no different in this situation. Being able to put my thoughts onto paper and then apply it to music really was helpful during my healing journey. Also for me personally, I always felt like speaking about my experience has been healing for me, as well.

David Craig:

I think that that’s wonderful. I’ve had folks that they just look at where they’re at and they see no tomorrow, and they’re very depressed, and that’s normal. It’s very normal, but I’ve always encouraged them to try to find that purpose, and the purpose can be different for every different person. I know Dawne sees this with her support group. Everybody’s different and they’re not the same path for everyone, but if you have a purpose, then that can help you.

Lisa Mary:

Absolutely. I agree.

David Craig:

I had a client who had a severe brain injury, and she always wanted to be an author. She had been for years working on a book, and then she had this wreck. Then she thought, “Oh my gosh, I’ll never be able to do what I wanted to do,” and fortunately, we’re able to get a recovery for her, and I put her in touch and said, “Here’s how you go about writing a book,” because I had written one, and she’s now published. She wrote a book and that motivated her. She had a purpose. It’s like, “I’m going to have to do it differently than I would have before the wreck, but I will still do it. I’m not going to not do it.”

I had a mechanic who was paralyzed, and he could no longer be a mechanic, but now he owns his own shop. He trains and teaches other people and has young people work for him because he took an attitude that, “I’m not going to let paralysis end my journey. I love being a mechanic. I can’t necessarily crawl under cars, but you know what I can do? I can have my own shop, and I can have people work for me,” and so, I think it’s important that what Dawne does and what your message is, that you need a purpose. You need to look forward, you need to look in the future. How can you do this, what can you do? I think that you’ve done that. Tell us a little bit about how you’re doing musically, and what’s your life like today? What lingering effects do you have from the wreck, if any?

Lisa Mary:

I am grateful to say that I am fully recovered on a physical level, but I personally feel like recovery goes far beyond your physical injuries. It also has to do with your mindset, and of course, there are certain things for me that… I’m never going to be the same driver. I’m never going to be the same passenger. To this day, I have issues getting on the freeway. That’s still a big fear that I’m trying to overcome, but overall, on a personal level, I’m doing great. As far as music is concerned, ever since the crash, my goal has always been to inspire and just write music that felt really personal to me. I’ve written a lot about the crash and the effects that it’s had on me. Lately, I just put out my second album, which is called, If I’m Honest. Half of that album is actually about the crash and, again, how that affected me. I’ve been playing live shows, and I just was recently nominated for four independent music awards, and I went to the Grand Ole Opry last fall for that.

David Craig:

That’s so exciting. That’s fantastic. How about the guilt? Have you gotten past that? Have you moved on?

Lisa Mary:

Definitely, yes. That was something that I experienced a lot in the beginning. I’d say the first year I felt really guilty, but as I’ve progressed in my own healing journey, that is something that I’ve been able to overcome.

David Craig:

Did you find times where you were making a lot of progress and then would slip backwards a little bit and then have to go back forward? Talk a little bit about that.

Lisa Mary:

Yep. It was one step forward, three steps back. So often throughout my recovery, there were days where I felt really great and then the next day I would feel really weak. It was this constant battle, going to physical therapy and feeling like I’m getting much better, and then the next day I just felt like I wasn’t progressing in the way that I thought I was.

David Craig:

What did keep you going? How did you manage to mentally and physically move through this?

Lisa Mary:

At first, because obviously I had to put music to the side while I recovered, and I think that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my entire life. Because music has always been at the forefront of my life, having to set that aside to focus on myself and focus on my recovery was really difficult for me, but honestly, just being able to lean on my friends and my family and just being able to talk through my feelings was really helpful in the midst of it all.

David Craig:

How important was faith to you?

Lisa Mary:

Faith is really important to me, absolutely. That was a big part of it, too. I prayed every night, and yeah, it was really important to me.

David Craig:

I know one of the songs that you wrote about this experience was called Dive. Is that correct?

Lisa Mary:

That is correct.

David Craig:

So with your permission, we’re going to put that on this podcast and put a clip of you playing on that. I think that it’s such an inspiring story that I hope people watch that and listen to this, and it helps them get through the tough times because like you said, you do make three steps backwards even though you move one step forward, and those times are really tough. That’s where seeing how you did, seeing that, first of all, I’m not unusual. It is typical. This is something that should be expected, but a lot of times doctors don’t tell you that. I don’t know what your experience was, but a lot of my clients go through the experience and doctors are worried about fixing what’s wrong with you, but they don’t necessarily share a lot of information that helps us understand how we’re going to do and how long is it going to take.

Lisa Mary:

Those are questions that I was asking frequently to my doctors, and first and foremost, let me say, so again, I was 20 years old when I got in this crash. I was very young. Granted, I’m still young, I’m 26, but I was 20 at the time. I am fairly healthy, I was not someone who went to the doctor very frequently. It was very different for me going from maybe going to the doctor once a year to going to the doctor every other day, and some doctors just made me feel like a number on a page, and other doctors were really informative and helpful. That was also a part of it, just trying to find the right people that can help me with my recovery journey.

David Craig:

Some folks tell me that near death experiences make you look like you have a second chance in life, and it looks like you’ve taken and done the most with your second chance.

Lisa Mary:

Thank you.

David Craig:

So Dawne, is Lisa’s story typical of folks that you talk to and you see?

Dawne McKay:

I believe Lisa is very unique and extremely inspiring. A vast majority of crash survivors that I speak to or that are in the online support group are still struggling tremendously and trying to find their way forward and what they’re going to do moving forward with their recovery once they recover. I find Lisa is very unique, for sure, in how she was able to move forward and go through that tough recovery and get back to her singing. Like you said, David, everybody has to find their purpose, and for anybody out there struggling, I would have to say it will come, the challenges will get less and less, and you will find your way, but it’s just going to take some time and you just have to be patient. But it will come, definitely.

Lisa Mary:

I couldn’t agree more with that.

David Craig:

Fantastic advice. And Lisa, the people that are listening to this, they may be inspired to go look for your music. Tell me, how does one find your music?

Lisa Mary:

Yeah, absolutely. My website is LisaMaryMusic.com, and then all of my music can be found on all major music platforms. So we’re talking Spotify, Apple Music… Those are the first ones that come to mind, but anywhere that you buy or stream music, that’s where you’re going to be able to find me.

David Craig:

And Lisa, lastly, is there anything that you would like to share with our audience that maybe we haven’t talked about or I haven’t asked you about that you think is important?

Lisa Mary:

Honestly, I thought that Dawne’s last statement really was perfect.

David Craig:

Dawne, is there anything else you want to share? Very rarely do we say something that people say is perfect.

Lisa Mary:

She just wrapped it up perfectly.

Dawne McKay:

I appreciate that so much, Lisa. I’ll never forget, David, Lisa actually reached out to me, to the Crash Support Network. She sent me an email saying, “I’d like to support crash survivors. I’m a crash survivor myself,” and that’s how we got to know each other. I feel blessed meeting her, and I follow her and her music, and I see when she’s posting that she’s live somewhere and doing her concerts. I couldn’t be more proud. We have a wonderful friendship, going forward. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Lisa, and you have such a great personality. I’m just so thrilled and happy that you’re able to find your way back to music and have found your purpose. It’s wonderful.

Lisa Mary:

That means the world to me. Thank you so much.

David Craig:

And you have another new fan. Before this podcast, I’ve been watching all your music. I went to Spotify. I’ve been watching it, as well, on YouTube. You’ve got a new fan. Hopefully you’ll gather some more, and I wish you absolutely nothing but the best in the future. Thank you so much for what you’re doing with contributing and helping survivors of crashes and thank you for being on our podcast today.

Lisa Mary:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

David Craig:

Dawne, as always, thank you again. I appreciate it. I encourage people to go back and look at episode 11 to hear about Dawne’s story as well.

Lisa Mary:

(singing)

David Craig:

This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After The Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, ckflaw.com, or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-Ask-David. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.