The Story

Caren Robinson – Survivor

(status updates at bottom of page)

My name is Caren Robinson. I’ve always been a busy gal, an adrenaline junkie to some extent. I loved riding motorcycles, roller coasters, and diving off bridges into lakes. I had a real passion for anything creative or expressive, especially The Arts. I lived life at full throttle and happily threw myself into work and community service. From a young age, I learned the value of hard work. I’ve held a job since I was a teenager and have worn many hats over the years. One of my first jobs was as a camp counselor for children with Cystic Fibrosis (back when they still allowed CF kids to gather like that), and I’ve jumped into every opportunity life has thrown my way, which admittedly sometimes resulted in organized chaos. Long before I met my husband, I was a single foster mom to hard-to-place children, back when the system still heavily favored couples over individuals. I guess you could say I was a rebel of sorts, and didn’t hesitate to bump up against that “glass ceiling” at times.

As of this writing, I’m a married woman, a mother, a stepmother, and a legal guardian to six incredible children, all with their own unique complexities. Life before the wreck was chaotic in the best way, but not without its equal peaks and valleys. I had recently been promoted at a full-time job I cared about, with full benefits just around the corner. I spent most of my adult life working in nonprofit and medical settings, while also staying deeply involved in community volunteering. I was active in my kids’ schools and rarely home, as we were always on the move. With multiple kids, multiple appointments, dual households (for my stepkids), and endless activities, our schedules were full, never ever boring, and personally meaningful. My husband also worked full-time, which meant our days off were precious, where we’d pack them with family time, overdue errands, and much-needed moments of fun, navigating drama, and preparing for our next adventure .

Life was loud. Life was busy. Life was challenging, and while often complicated – it was still beautiful.

And then, everything changed.

carens phone 789 — My kids and nephew Summer of 2013 – a great memory.

On Friday, January 3, 2014, I dropped off two of our girls at a house for a sleepover. One was our oldest daughter, and the other was a young woman we had legal guardianship of through the court (not related to either of us). She had graduated high school the previous spring, and we were planning to take her to college the following week. This sleepover was their last “hoorah” before we all parted ways for a while. My husband’s birthday was coming up on January 5, and we had a lot to get done over the weekend.

The next morning, Saturday – January 4, my husband was unexpectedly called into work. He had to take our vehicle. This was around the same time I was supposed to go pick the girls up from the sleepover. We scrambled to figure things out, and my mom generously offered her minivan for me to use. She lives in the same house as we do, so it wasn’t a major inconvenience….but it wasn’t part of the plan, either. My husband and I both left the house around 11 a.m.

I remember that it was snowing. The roads were slushy. It was a bright Saturday morning and it was COLD!!! I remember buckling our youngest, Austin, who was 5 at the time, into his 5-point restraint car seat, and then buckling myself in. I remember Austin singing as we drove along and making me laugh with his 5 year old “knock knock” jokes. I felt good. I was calm, happy, and focused on what had to be accomplished that day. I backed out of the driveway, turned onto the main road, and we headed off to pick up the girls to do some final weekend shopping. It should’ve taken about 15 minutes. That is where my memory stops from that day.

The girls were waiting…I would never arrive.

Little did I know that this day would go down in infamy and literally change every aspect of our lives.

We were in a horrific head-on collision. I don’t really know why I call it “horrific” – because is there really such a thing as a nice, wonderful, or beautiful collision? Obviously not. Of course it was horrific…yet that word still doesn’t seem strong enough to describe the severity of the onslaught of events, discoveries, and upheaval that would be thrust upon all of us.

I would find out later that my seatbelt failed/malfunctioned and I was ejected through the passenger side door – from the driver’s side. My body bent the door frame outward (steel mind you) and I was ejected over the door frame that my body apparently bent in half, and landed approximately 10-15 feet from the vehicle face down in the roadway. It didn’t appear that I went through the window or through the windshield. In fact, the windshield, though cracked all over, remained intact. Both airbags were deployed. The fire Department had to cut the other driver out of her vehicle.

The police report notes that the first 911 call came in at 12:05 p.m. That’s confusing, because I left at 11:00 and should’ve arrived 15 minutes later. What happened during those missing 50 minutes? I can only assume I lay unconscious in the road while good Samaritans waited for emergency services. I later found out the nearest ambulance and fire crew were on another call, so a different unit had to be dispatched, which delayed their arrival.

I had no memory of the accident (and still don’t). The other driver didn’t remember anything either. Our survival was nothing short of miraculous.

Austin remembered it all… at the time. He would tell us:

“I remember we hit a wall (guessing from the feel of the impact since there was no wall), you flew out the door like Superman, then it got dark and then light again (wondering if blacked out here). I unbuckled myself, opened the van’s side door, and started calling for you because I couldn’t find you. When I did, you were face down in a pool of blood and wouldn’t answer me. I kept telling you to get up over and over. Why didn’t you answer me? Why were you making those moaning sounds and not opening your eyes?”

“I didn’t want people to run over your feet because you were in the road. A man stopped in a red pickup truck and called 911. A lady who was on her knees by you and trying to help you, told me not to touch you. Then a really old man and woman let me sit in their car. I know I’m not supposed to get in cars with strangers, but I was really, really cold and scared. You’re not mad at me, right? I stayed with them until a policeman came. He showed me stuff in his car and let me play on his phone while the firemen helped you. I told him where Dad worked, and he called Dad. Then Dad came to get me and took me home.”

Austin’s story has remained consistent over the years, though his ability to describe it has grown with age.

It’s important to note: Austin was never evaluated by ambulance personnel. The emergency team didn’t even know a child had been involved; he was already inside the good Samaritan’s vehicle when they arrived. His car seat looked like it had been bitten into by a bear. They didn’t even look for a child, even with a mangled carseat that was clearly visible to them. Miraculously, he had no visible injuries. Not even seatbelt marks I am told. We later described it as “an unexplained miracle and angel blessing.”

My husband Rick came from work and picked up Austin from the scene. I apparently was already gone from the scene and on my way to the hospital by the time my husband got there.

In the midst of all this, the mom of the girl at the slumber party was on a tight schedule and I had never arrived at the time agreed on. Instead of continuing to wait and wonder, she gave our girls a ride home. They were all unaware of the accident that had just happened, or what was going on, why I never showed, and why I wasn’t answering my phone. My mom greeted them when they got home and they all were together there at the house with our other kids when the life altering news began to unfold for my family. Rick took Austin home to stay with his siblings, and then picked up my mom, so they could both go to the hospital to be with me.

I incurred numerous injuries, lacerations, fractures, and a plum sized right eye coupled with a closed head injury. It was later confirmed I had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). That phrase “traumatic brain injury” would become the base of my ‘new normal”. Yet, the name itself didn’t even begin to describe what I would be living with. The extent of my medical injuries would continue to be discovered…..treated…..missed diagnoses and then not treated…..and an eruption of unknowns that were still unfolding as time went on.

The trauma team started calling my injuries a “polytrauma” (this is when two or more systems of a body are injured…and I was injured quite literally from head to toe). That word,”polytrauma”, became my new identity; but it didn’t even begin to capture the devastation I was facing. The devastation we were all forced to endure. The damage was deep, unpredictable, often invisible, and still unfolding to this day.

All these moments, would, though unknown to me at that time, change every facet of my entire life forever, for the rest of my life.

Thank God for Michigan No-Fault Auto. I truly and firmly believe I would have died had it not been for this medical coverage provided to me as a Michigan citizen. I fell into their “assigned claims” pile. It turns out that my mom’s van was underinsured by the dealership (unbeknownst to her). She was leasing it to own from a place called JD Byrider and paying them for full coverage insurance; they ended up going Bankrupt in our area, a few years later for unscrupulous practices. That is a whole other story for another time. Mental note…don’t ever buy a vehicle from that company.