Woman who nearly died after being hit by drunk driver reconnects with team that saved her life
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IDAHO FALLS — A woman who was hit by a drunk driver in Grand Teton National Park returned to Idaho Falls on Friday to visit the team who saved her life. It was an opportunity rarely afforded medical personnel.
When the crash happened on July 17, 2023, Debbie Crawley was riding her motorcycle over Togwotee Pass with her husband, Mike, and four of their friends. The group had just cleared a long stretch of construction when a driver crossed over the center line and hit Crawley.
“I never, never saw him,” she told EastIdahoNews.com.
Crawley’s left foot was severed on impact.
She had other extensive injuries. Her left hip was shattered, and her femur was broken. Both of her elbows were broken. Large patches of her leg had been scraped off to the bone, and her face had scraped along on the road as well.
She was quickly bleeding out.
Togwotee Pass is well-traveled, but there’s no cell coverage at over 9,600 feet above sea level.
What happened next, Crawley attributes to “God’s grace.”
Incredibly, two trauma nurses were driving behind the group, and they had a satellite phone.
“They called for help and started working on me,” Crawley remembers.
One of Crawley’s friends had a saddlebag packed with emergency supplies, including a tourniquet. This was immediately applied to her leg to stem the bleeding.
Teton National Park EMS arrived and began administering fluids directly into Crawley’s bone to help stabilize her blood pressure, gave her oxygen and called for air transport.
It took an hour for the helicopter to reach them.
Clinging to life
Despite everyone’s best efforts, when Air Idaho Rescue arrived, Crawley was barely breathing. She had lost massive amounts of blood. Medics gave her a blood transfusion equal to about 20 percent of her total body blood volume.
The flight crew administered multiple rounds of medications for hemorrhaging and blood pressure and stabilized her shattered pelvis to prevent further hemorrhaging.
The nearest Level II Trauma Center was Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.
By the time she arrived, Crawley had suffered an overwhelming blood loss and her organs were shutting down. Over 15 clinical experts met Crawley, including trauma surgeons, ER physicians, multiple RNs, radiology technologists, lab phlebotomists, pharmacists, anesthesiologists and others.
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She was sent to the operating room immediately, where two surgeons — trauma surgeon Dr. Adam Meziani and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lance Jacobson — operated simultaneously to keep Crawley from bleeding to death.
During her first five hours at EIRMC, she was infused with 22 units of blood — enough to replace her entire blood volume twice over.
Although her life was ultimately saved, it would never be the same.
“I’m glad you’re here, kid”
Crawley would spend 37 days at EIRMC, 23 of which were in the ICU. During her hospitalization in Idaho Falls, she had eight surgeries. After she went home to Colorado, she underwent four more, she said.
On the day she left, Dr. Meziani told her, “I’m glad you’re here, kid. I lost you twice.”
Now living as an amputee, Crawley admits she has her ups and downs. But, on the whole, she’s simply happy to be alive.
The driver who hit her was later identified as Joshua Berry, 36, of Wisconsin. Crawley said he didn’t seem to realize what had happened and kept driving. Construction workers had to run after him and flag him down.
Berry’s breath test was nearly triple the legal limit, at 0.217.
In October, he pleaded no contest to felony DUI and two misdemeanors of failure to drive a vehicle in a single lane and leaving the scene of an accident, the Jackson Hole News and Guide reported.
Crawley will give her victim impact statement at Berry’s sentencing on Tuesday but first, she wanted to reconnect with the people she calls heroes and thank them again for their tireless efforts.
EIRMC was happy to oblige, hospital spokeswoman Coleen Niemann told EastIdahoNews.com. She contacted Air Idaho Rescue, Teton National Park EMS and EIRMC’s emergency department to coordinate a reunion.
Although everyone who had a hand in saving Crawley couldn’t attend, those who did greeted her and each other with warm handshakes, hugs, smiles and sometimes tears. For the trauma team, it was a rare treat.
“People spend time here, healing. But when their time is done, they leave and go on with life. They don’t usually look back,” Meziani explained.
Watch Debbie Crawley’s story and the reunion in the video player above.