Turning tragedy into a positive! Local Bothell Girl Hoping for Scholarship
Bothell, Wa– Turning tragedy into a positive. This story was submitted by one of our local readers. Please take a moment and read the following:
“On August 2, 2008 our oldest daughter and her best friend were in Kenmore heading back to Bothell. They left a local fast food restaurant and as our daughter was going around the corner – for some reason she left the road went up onto the sidewalk, and side-swipped the chain length fence. The fence had been damaged due to a resent windstorm and the top railing came through her windshield and impacted the passenger in the chest. Despite the efforts of the EMT’s and Doctors at Harborview, the passenger, our daughters best friend, could not be saved. There was proven to have no drugs or alcohol involved, our daughters cell phone was found in her purse on the back seat floorboard with a dead battery. Speed nor mechanical malfunction were not declared to be factors. King County Sheriff declared it a horrible tragedy.
The survivor guilt in our daughter proved to be too much for her to handle. She believed that walking down the halls of BHS people were talking about her (even though they weren’t) She ended up dropping out of school, running away from home, and sadly self medicating.
Today our daughter is trying to put together the pieces of her life, she has a great boyfriend and finally found a job, but the scars of the accident and the aftermath still haunt us all.
Before the accident my girls were like may sisters, together all the time. However after watching our daughters self-destruct, burying a friend and dealing with all the family fights was horrible. That’s why our youngest made a vow to herself that she was NOT going to be like her sister. She was going to rise above the accident, learn from it and make a better life for herself. She hopes to some day become an attorney.
Tragic as this situation has been my daughter now has a goal of being the first in our house to attend and graduate from a university. She has taken a tragedy and is learning from it. She is a hardworking, caring, and giving young lady. After the accident, our world was turned upside down, life as we knew it was over. Family fights and tears were more the norm, as an attempt to restore some peace we opted to get our girls involved with coaching young girls. Starting in the spring of 2009 we began coaching 1st and 2nd grade girls the game we all loved, slow pitch softball. Our oldest daughter wasn’t able to connect; the youngest however fell in love with coaching. She has a summer job coaching kids and has volunteered her time to coach girls’ softball since and last fall coached a girls’ soccer team. Her mantra is to always turn negative into positive.
Please help her by reading her essay, hearing her story and voting. The money she could win would really help her in achieving her goals. She is competing with kids all over, but I’d love to see her get something back for all the time she has given. Please click on the link below and vote if you think her paper is worthy. Thank you for your time and thoughts.”
