CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - She’s shaken and still sore, but 18-year-old Elva Salazar will be okay.
“I wish it would’ve never happened, I never imagined something like that happening to us,” said Salazar from her hospital bed.
She’s amazed by the pictures of the car she and her father were riding in when they were hit from behind by a tractor trailer. It happened around 8:30 Wednesday morning on I-85 southbound near Statesville Road when a driver started to get off the exit, then swerved back into traffic. The result was a four vehicle pileup.
Other drivers helped her out of the passenger seat.
“She was telling me everything is going to be okay, I remember crying out for my mom, but she wasn’t in the car, I just probably imagined it,” said Salazar.
Surprisingly, her father also survived. But it will be weeks before he’s able to walk again. Several of his ribs and both legs are broken.
“He can barely talk, he can barely move, he’s always complaining that he’s in so much pain,” said Salazar.
Salazar says she blacked out during the impact and doesn’t remember much.
It’s the second time she’s been hospitalized for a car accident in less than a year.
“It’s just too much to see that car like that, I don’t know how we got out of that car, I’m just so thankful for the people that helped us,” said Salazar.
She says the accident is a reminder of the twist and turns in life, and how the unexpected can change everything in an instant.
“I feel super lucky and I am thankful to God or whoever the angels were, whoever helped us, very, very lucky,” said Salazar.
Salazar hopes to be released from Carolinas Medical Center Thursday.
Article source: http://www.wbtv.com/story/19067212/exclusive-i85-crash-victim-speaks
