A Pedestrian–Car Crash Leads One Mother To Action

Traffic, in a sense, is built on trust. We trust roads will be designed safely. We trust drivers will obey the rules of the road and follow traffic signs and signals. We teach our children to recognize and trust these symbols as well.

On May 24^th, 2005, Dominick May-Douglass was a sixth grader at Seattle’s Hamilton International Middle School. He played basketball, participated in after-school programs, and had recently become an honor-roll student. On his walk home from school that day, he came to an unsignalized crosswalk on Stone Way North.

He waited for the cars across the four-lane road to stop as he had been taught and then began to cross. But one car did not stop; instead, that driver swerved around the four others that had stopped and collided with Dominick. When the car hit him, Dominick impacted the windshield and was thrown sixty-eight feet, landing on his head.

Thanks to the excellent work of Seattle Fire Department medics and Harborview neurosurgeons, Dominick survived the impact. He spent the summer of 2005 coming out of a long coma in Children’s Hospital Rehabilitation ward. But the boy who once kayaked and played basketball with ease has had to relearn nearly everything and still isn’t back to where he started. Due to the uncertainties of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), it is unclear how complete his recovery can be.

Dominick and his family are busy rebuilding a life around the realities of TBI despite the slow, and sometimes painful, recovery experience. Desiree has helped turn her son’s struggle into positive action by founding HEADSTRONG, an organization whose mission is “to support families and survivors of pedestrian-vehicle crashes.” She has also become a strong advocate for pedestrian safety to help prevent such crashes, partnering with organizations like Feet First and PedInRoads to help build Safe Routes to School.

Under the direction of Desiree, Headstrong

• supports families and survivors of pedestrian car crashes

• educates communities about the devastation caused by pedestrian-car crashes

• advocates for more pedestrian safety in road and crosswalk designs, and

• encourages safe driver and pedestrian education.

Desiree’s perseverance in the face of her son’s difficult recovery can inspire us all. Her voice brings urgency to a problem that all too often gets too slow a response. She strongly believes the crosswalks on Stone Way North could and should have been designed to prevent the crash that disabled Dominick.

Desiree works with sister organizations Feet First and PedInRoads to demand cities identify dangerous bus stops, intersections, and crosswalk conditions and to repair them immediately. Her goal to win back the trust of the roads for us all has only just begun.

To learn more about Desiree's work, visit http://headstrongforlife.org/

OR: Sign up on our website to learn more about how you can advocate for pedestrian safety and Safe Routes to School.