Paraplegic warns Soldiers of reckless behavior during safety briefing

By Katherine Rosario
1st Inf. Div. Post

More than 1,000 Soldiers who recently returned home from deployment learned that small choices could have huge consequences as part of the Garrison Safety Office’s summer safety briefing April 26 at Barlow Theater.
Kelly Narowski, a paraplegic, spoke to Soldiers about how split second decisions could affect their lives forever.
Narowski was paralyzed after overcompensating a turn on a curvy mountain road in California and crashing her friend’s car into a guardrail.
Her friend, who had between six and eight martinis before jumping into the driver’s seat, asked Narowski to switch places because she was too drunk to drive. Narowski had had two drinks.
“I remember getting out of the car, and I remember what I was wearing and how the mountains and the sky looked,” she said. “It was the last time I ever walked.”
Her friend, Heather, was wearing her seatbelt and walked away without a scratch. Narowski was not wearing a seatbelt.
“My body was pushed very, very hard into the steering wheel, and I broke my ribs, collarbone, my lungs were collapsed and full of blood,” she said.
The Jeep collided with the guardrail a second time, sending her flying around the car until she ended up in the backseat.
“My body flew around the Jeep like a ragdoll, and it ended up in the backseat, and my body was going 70 miles an hour,” she said.
She shattered her T6 vertebrae.
“It exploded like a grenade. My spinal cord was stretched like a piece of taffy, and I was paralyzed from the chest down forever from that moment in time on,” she said.
The next thing she remembered, she said, was the paramedics telling her not to move and then lying on a hard wooden table in the hospital.
She stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for a month and underwent eight surgeries before learning how to live life as a wheelchair user.
“Heather walked away without a scratch and that’s the difference between a seatbelt and no seatbelt,” she said.
Personal safety is a plan for a healthy, happy life, she said.
“It’s not hard to get into these good habits, such as limiting time on the cell phone while driving or pulling over to take a call,” Narowski said.
The safety office asked Narowski to speak as their kickoff event to 111 days of summer safety, said Dawn Douglas, Garrison Safety Office safety and occupational health specialist.
The age group of Soldiers returning from deployment is between 18 and 26, and that age group is most likely to be killed in a vehicle crash, she said.
“These young Soldiers are more likely to drive fatigued, and coming back from a deployment, they have a high-octane tempo,” Douglas said. “We know people can identify with a person better than a movie or a PowerPoint slide, and Mrs. Narwoski, I think, will really resonate with them.”
Pfc. Sandra Colocho, 601st Aviation Support Battalion, Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, said she was moved by Narowski’s story and realized she needed to change her driving habits.
“I took a lot of what she said to heart because I have two children, and I do talk on the phone in my car, and now I realize that I’m setting an example for my kids that it’s OK to do that when they start driving,” she said. “I wouldn’t want my kids hurt.”

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