I didn't have to do it

Today The News-Journal published my experience covering a fatal rollover about two weeks ago in a "First Person" column. It's heartening that my editors were so willing to go behind the story and bring the human element to light.


Deltona teen's story hits close to home

I didn't have to do it.

I could have protested being assigned to cover the aftermath of Friday's fatal rollover in Deltona. I'm sure the editors would've understood -- after all, I'd been in one on I-4 myself three months ago.

They'd seen the scars and bruises when I'd returned to work a week later, the careful way I'd carried my battered body around the newsroom.

But there are still wounds no one sees -- of coming to terms with survival, of seeing every day the fiercely dented guardrail where I ran off the road on the way to work. They're wounds I knew talking to 14-year-old Krystle Accardi's friends would reopen again.

And I was scared.

I drove to Deltona, my hands tightly gripping the wheel, and passed by the quiet high school -- twice. I drove farther down Howland Boulevard past Krystle's roadside memorial and marveled at how close the teenagers had been to school when the truck tipped over.

After I'd spoken with a few parents and teens in the school parking lot about the mood of the day, I headed over to the memorial where more friends had gathered. I was shaking.

About 10 students stood in silence on the sidewalk, sniffling and staring at messages of their friend now gone. I stood with them for a moment fighting to quell the rising emotion before turning to Lisa Chapman, mother of Krystle's friend Amanda Green.

We chatted for a moment and she stood by while I spoke with her tearful, red-faced daughter about the loss. The pain was tangible.

"I'm sorry," I said to Chapman, my voice breaking. "I almost died myself in a rollover three months ago on I-4. This isn't easy."

I don't know why I said it; it wasn't very professional of me. But the words tumbled from emotions I could barely control.

"Oh," she said, patting my back gently. "You're doing fine, honey."

It was strange: the source comforting the reporter.

We wrapped up our interviews and I wandered back to the car. I had no idea how I'd sit down to write. I could barely function. My emotions were in shambles.

When I got back to the office, I sat at my desk and cried silently, writing about Krystle and the grieving people she'd left behind. After it was filed, I stood at the editor's side and explained how difficult it had been for me to follow and to write.

"But it's my job," I said. "I looked at it as a challenge because I'm a strong person."

The following day, another reporter e-mailed a MySpace message from one of Krystle's closest friends. I printed it out and stuck it where I could see it.

"I know Krystle. A lot better than most people. And I know that right now, she's chillin' with God and she's laughing and smiling. I know she wants people to know her story. She wants people to know how she died. She's an Angel. She always has been, and now she is a Guardian Angel. And the way that she can be a Guardian Angel is to save others."

I'd been wearing a seatbelt; she hadn't. It easily could have been me and the knowledge hurt, but not so much as it hurt to know she could have lived.

She's an angel now, though, and you just can't beat that.

This DeLand staff writer was involved in a serious car accident along Interstate 4 on June 26. Her right rear tire blew out in the eastbound lane. The car crossed the grass median, slammed into the guardrail and flipped over several times. She crawled out of a shattered back window, battered and shaken, but alive.