Luck of the Drawer

Amber Scott is thanking more than her lucky stars this week. The 20-year-old Indiana woman, who received only minor injuries Tuesday after her car was apparently rear-ended into a moving freight train and then dragged for four miles, credited some of her good fortune to the Lucky Brand Dungarees T-shirt she was wearing during her wild ride.

In a story even stranger than fiction, the shirt, produced by Vernon-based Lucky Brand Dungarees, brandished the slogan “Too Tough to Die.” Scott escaped with only a concussion, a sore back and bruises. During the ordeal, she managed to dial her mother and 911 on her cellular phone.

Within 24 hours of the accident, a shaken but gracious Scott held up her T-shirt on the “Today Show” and some 220 newscasts nationwide.

The T-shirt makers, known mostly for their denim clothing and sportswear, know they couldn’t buy this sort of publicity. Not that they’d want to, says Lucky Brand partner Gene Montesano.

“I feel like St. Christopher,” said a beaming Montesano, who’s been slammed with phone calls from media and friends ever since. “We rather this didn’t happen. This woman is an unbelievable person--with, of course, a great taste level,” he said, laughing.

This is apparently not a first for the brand--just the most dramatic. Montesano says he’s received letters from parents and a few kids retelling their lucky escapes while wearing Lucky Brand goods.

The line is available at better department stores, as well as eight Lucky Brand stores nationwide.

Montesano says he will invite Scott for an expenses-paid trip to L.A. and a shopping spree at one of the Lucky Brand stores.

TV crews, start your engines.