How I Survived Surviving – One Musician’s Journey to Recovery

I’m no stranger to plans completely derailing. Just two nights before the accident our converted van was practically swallowed by thick mud in Las Vegas, New Mexico, forcing us to stay awake until 3 AM while our hosts transformed from friendly audience members to absolute heroes. They shoveled out our tires, laid plywood and even woke their neighbor, who graciously wrenched our van out of the earth’s stomach with their tow truck. Like I said, I can handle changes in plan. I am a professional touring musician; which means I live in my van, I shower at stranger’s houses, I have an unpredictable income, and I love it. Or at least, I loved it.

It was the morning of March 23, 2023 when everything changed, in a way I absolutely could not handle.  My band and I sighed in relief when we saw the freshly plowed Colorado highway. As a musician, we were on route to perform at Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Idaho and had just endured Wyoming’s brutal road conditions for the last hour.  Visible pavement parted snow-covered hills, and promised the worst behind us. A herd of antelope, with their permanently startled eyes watched us from the shoulder as we drove by. I was loopy that morning. I’d caught the awful cold that recently had both my bandmates slathering vaporub like sunscreen in the Sahara Desert. I dozed off in the front passenger seat.

I Felt I Was in The Afterlife

I awoke to my body violently hitting the door. My fiance who is also a musician was gripping the steering wheel, swearing. The miracle highway turned out to be covered in black ice. In under twenty four seconds, we spun backwards into the opposing lane, flew off the highway’s edge at sixty MPH and rolled three times down a fifty foot hill. Each roll suspended us upside down in the air before slamming into the ground on the passenger side. I imagined the metal frame crumpling around us, and anticipated each coming hit as the one we wouldn’t survive. I knew I was going to die, there was no doubt in my mind. I was lonely, and then I blacked out.

When my eyes first opened, fragmented thoughts informed me I was in the afterlife, and I was no longer falling. I saw my body with bloated, blurry vision, and patted myself down. Broken glass fell out of my hair and lap as I leaned over, sick to my stomach. My limbs were shaking uncontrollably from shock. My fiance and I had suffered severe concussions. The roof had caved in and the back bench tore out of the floor. Our bandmate was completely buried in our belongings and had broken two of his ribs. We crawled out of the windows, and helped each other trudge up the steep hill to a passerby who’d already called an ambulance.

The PTSD Was Unbearable At Times

We flew back home to Calgary, AB and began an infinite list of medical appointments. I had a meltdown when my concussion therapist touched my right shoulder. I rolled into a ball and screamed at him to leave me alone. He respectfully left me to my privacy and I wept the whole appointment away. When my second therapist asked me to hold my hands out in front of me, I saw them floating over the dashboard. Suddenly I was rolling and watching all my things fly around me in slow motion. Both therapists put me to the top of the waitlist to see their on-site psychologist; a woman with fiery red hair who became my lifeline.

She diagnosed me with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety. I was riddled with flashbacks and imprisoned by my overactive amygdala. I was hyper-alert, overly cautious, terrified of noise, motion, elevators, planes, cars, snow, ect. I could hardly sleep, and if I did, it wasn’t long before nightmares bolted me awake into heart-pounding, sweaty panic attacks. I was constantly on the verge of throwing up and had multiple migraines a day. I struggled with balance, strength, vision, reading, writing, concentration and visual auras. I couldn’t move my head to the right, or my arm above my shoulder. I felt completely broken, and I hated myself. For nine long months, nothing could console me. Music, my passion and lifelong dream, had become a major trigger.  I was a musician. I had no desire to create and no hope for a future.

My medical team urged me to start Fluvoxamine, an SSRI that helps victims of PTSD. I had reached suicidal levels of depression and was willing to try anything. It was not only the chemical change in my head that brought the first breath of relief I’d experienced all year, but the surrender to the idea that I needed external support to survive surviving. I began weekly Exposure Therapy, a therapy style I initially refused because I didn’t want to actively relive the most terrifying experience of my life. But I did, fifty or so times. I was bed-ridden for days after each session, but eventually, I cried away most of my repressed tears. Slowly, I began to face my fears. Winter’s first snow fell. Instead of panicking, I reached for it and watched it melt in the heat of my hand.

I Was Able To Write and Record My Recovery Journey Through Music

There is a Ford E-150 parked in our neighborhood that looks identical to our old van. One day, instead of avoiding it, I chose to walk by. A week later, I walked by again and stared at it until I cried. Two weeks later, I walked up to it and imagined I was in it. I felt the seatbelt hold my weight and the dashboard graze my fingertips. I felt the grief of my inner child and held her. I cried my final tears. Then, one day, I just walked on by.  For me, grief hit so hard I couldn’t imagine getting up again. But over time, the evidence of my recovery was reflected in my mirror, in my mother’s eyes, in my therapy sessions, and even in my dreams. Somehow, throughout the year, I wrote an entire record detailing my journey. I joined a community of MVA survivors at the Crash Support Network Group. I even began booking my next tour.

It was the morning of March 23, 2023 when everything changed, in a way I absolutely could not handle, alone. I’m a professional musician, and now, I’m an MVA survivor; which means I am resilient, I am brave, I feel the heights of joy and the depths of suffering, and I can handle a change in plans.

For more information please visit:  www.laurahickliofficial.com.

We thank Laura for becoming a member of the Crash Support Network and for sharing her story with us.

This article is also featured in our 2024 Summer Issue of Sharing our Recovery.

The Crash Support Network is a unique one-of-a-kind website consisting of an online support group, a crash survivor blog, a quarterly newsletter, “Sharing Our Recovery” as well as highly informative articles. Our website is based on relationship-building and puts the needs of survivors first by creating a helpful resource for victims and survivors of motor vehicle crashes.