Tennessee Car Accident Survivor Shares Story

A woman who survived a terrible car crash last year on Interstate 26 has been sharing her story of survival to others.

Rachel Reed was one of four people sent to the hospital following a crash on Interstate 26 that backed up the highway for hours.  The crash was so horrendous that Reed had to be extricated from her car. 

As the one-year anniversary of her accident approaches, Reed has stepped up her efforts to share her story.  She will be one of the featured speakers at the Oasis, located in the Crossroads Student Building at Higher Ground Baptist Church on Lynn Garden Drive in Kingsport.

The accident occurred on February 8, 2008.  Reed, who lives in Colonial Heights, attended classes that morning at East Tennessee State University.  She was on her way to pick up a friend in Church Hill when the crash took place.  Reed had approached the foot of the hill on I-26 near the Stone Drive exit when she saw a vehicle, a Cavalier model, coming toward her through the air.  Reed recalls thinking, “How am I going to get out of the way?”  Her car was between the two bridges and she was afraid that the impact would force her car to fall onto the baseball fields below the interstate.

Reed remembers the car hitting her mirror, but can’t remember anything beyond that.  She became pinned in her vehicle.  The impact of the accident had crushed Reed’s car.  Based on the damage to her vehicle, it didn’t look like anyone could have survived.  There were pieces of the Cavalier found inside Reed’s car.

Shea Payne was one of the first firefighters on the scene.  He happened to attend the same church as Reed, but didn’t immediately recognize her.

After emergency workers loaded Reed into the ambulance, her parents arrived and saw Payne.  They called out to him to see if their daughter was alive and that is when he realized it was Reed who had been injured.  He told her parents that she was still alive.

Reed spent the weekend on a ventilator in a drug-induced coma with swelling on her brain.  She also had 22 broken bones.  However, Reed eventually recovered and now shares her story of survival.

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