Crash Survivor Hopes to Save Lives
Ashley Biersach’s doctors say she should still be home recuperating from a fractured spinal column, a broken tailbone and an amputated foot suffered in an automobile accident that killed two of her best friends last year.
Instead, the 17-year-old former cheerleader from Las Vegas will be in Irvine this weekend to speak at a free safe-driving program for teenagers. She hopes her broken bones and shattered dreams will be a wake-up call to the millions of teens who get behind the wheel, unaware of the risks they face.
“My whole life changed in the blink of an eye,” Ashley said in an interview from her Las Vegas home. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Since her release from the hospital last year, Ashley has been the keynote speaker for the Driver’s Edge, a nonprofit driver education program for teens. It was founded by former professional race car driver Jeff Payne and is sponsored by Bridgestone-Firestone, Sprint and the Automobile Club of America.
Statistics show that in 2001, more than 6,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 20 were killed in automobile crashes nationwide, accounting for about 14% of all traffic fatalities while representing just 9% of the population.
Payne and others blame poor driver education.
“Rather than pointing fingers after a teenager dies in an accident, we should be teaching them how to drive better in the first place,” Payne said.
The 4 1/2-hour program includes classroom and on-road lessons on evasive lane changes, anti-lock and panic braking and skid control.
But driving safety experts say that living proof, someone like Ashley, can be the most powerful tool for reaching teenagers.
“That is much more effective in the sense that it’s a real person,” said Sheila Sarkar, founder of the California Institute of Transportation Safety at San Diego State University. “There is nothing staged. There is no movie.”
Sometimes, Ashley wishes her accident had been a movie -- one she could rewind and do over with a different ending.
On May 9, 2002, Ashley and four friends were driving back to Las Vegas High School from lunch. She was in the back seat when the unlicensed driver, Ashley Troester, 16, traveling 60 mph in a 45-mph zone, lost control of the car, according to police. The Ford Thunderbird carrying the five girls slammed into a light pole, shearing the car in two.
Troester and a girl sitting in the front passenger seat were killed. The force of the crash crushed nearly every bone in Ashley Biersach’s back, waist and legs. Her right leg was nearly severed. She spent 49 days in the hospital, including five on a life-support system. Doctors amputated her injured foot and inserted metal plates and screws to mend other crushed bones.
A family friend put Ashley in touch with Payne, and the day after she was released from the hospital, Ashley spoke at the first Driver’s Edge program in Las Vegas and at several other events last year. This year, if her health and her doctors permit, she will travel to 11 cities nationwide to speak.
During the programs, Ashley tells teenagers how her life changed because of the mistakes of a young driver.
“I tell kids, ‘Look at me. I have no friends. Nobody comes to visit me. You guys will get up and walk away. I’m 17. I’m a senior, and I can’t walk,’ ” she said.
In addition to the physical demands of traveling to seminars, Ashley said the speeches take an emotional toll.
But she vows to continue as long as her health allows.
“I’m going to save lives for the rest of my life, no matter what it takes,” she said.
For information, call (877) 633-EDGE or visit www.
driversedge.org.
