These days, Katie Sandell thinks a lot about the dangers of distracted driving.
It's hard for her not to obsess over the topic. Her daughter, 6-year-old Addi, was nearly killed in a distracted driving incident in December 2022 -- and re-injured again in May by yet another distracted driver.
Addi's story and others' have inspired Sandell to start a nonprofit aimed at educating people about the dangers of distracted driving and helping those suffering traumatic brain injuries and their families.
For Addi, the trauma began in 2022 when she was run over by a car while looking at Christmas lights. The driver was distracted by a smartphone.
Addi flew 100 feet from the point of impact. Her injuries were numerous. She suffered a traumatic brain injury and what's referred to as an internal decapitation. Had she been a few years older and her spine a little more developed, Addi would have died.
The story of the little girl's ongoing recovery has proven to be a source of inspiration. Having become a sort of local celebrity, Addi's story drew the attention of Trinity Broadcasting, a Tustin, Calif.-based religious television network, which recently offered her a contract.
Sandell, who lives in The Lakes at Rancho El Dorado, wanted to use the newfound attention her daughter garnered to start a foundation to help TBI victims and their families. She launched a Facebook page documenting her daughter's recovery, called Addi's Miracle.
"I was going to take Addi's Miracle and turn it into a nonprofit to help support families who are new to the TBI world," Sandell said. "It's a very lonely journey. You have no idea where to go for help. You're left wondering, 'What's next?'"
What was next, it turned out, was more traumatic injuries for her young daughter at the hands of a distracted driver.
Sandell knew the direction she wanted to go with her new foundation, or at least she thought.
Everything changed in May when Addi was re-injured during a trip back from Phoenix on State Route 347.
A distracted driver rear-ended the Sandells. After the crash, something seemed off about Addi. She started slurring her words and shuffling her feet, struggling to walk.
For people who have sustained a serious TBI, like Addi, re-injuries are common. The whiplash caused by the May crash left Addi with a Secondary Impact Syndrome diagnosis.
Sandell said there's no telling how the injury will affect Addi long-term. But for now, she's lost some ground.
"She's regressed as far as the progress she's made in speech," she said. "She started having problems with word pronunciation, her speech became 'slushy,' as her therapist called it. She was able to drink out of a cup without a straw. Now she can't do that. She has to have a straw, otherwise, she'll choke."
Sandell was forced to resume Addi's physical therapy sessions over the summer. Despite the setback, she said the child's doctors are optimistic.
When Sandell's mind wasn't on Addi's recovery, she said she dwelled on how her daughter could have been seriously injured not once, but twice, by distracted drivers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Association reported 3,308 people were killed in distracted driving accidents in the U.S. in January 2023 -- nine people per day. NHTSA reports texting and driving is six times more dangerous than drunk driving.
In the 2022 accident, Addi was a pedestrian when she was hit by a woman distracted by her phone. That's no surprise in Arizona, which has the second highest rate of pedestrian fatalities -- 4.17 per 100,000 -- in the country, according to a study released by the Governors' Highway Safety Association last year. New Mexico topped the same study.
"The statistics are stupidly high," Sandell said. "Then, of course, we get in this accident in May, so I started looking at the statistics for distracted driving and it's not just an Arizona issue, it's a national issue."
Efforts to educate drivers don't seem to be working, however.
The AAA Foundation reports two-thirds of drivers continue to use their cell phones while they drive even after learning the statistics of distracted driving. If that's not enough, 7 in 10 teens of driving age who have watched a distracted driving presentation and learned the statistics said their parents "continue to text or talk on the phone while driving with them in the car."
Sandell said she feels there's just not enough education. Or, at least, not the right type.
"I think most people attend DMV-type classes and see presentations that point out the statistics and the dangers, but it's still too dry," she said. "It doesn't hit home with them. We need to show the hard pictures no one wants to see."
With such a lackadaisical approach to distracted driving, Sandell said she fears it's not a matter of if more devastating accidents like her daughter's happen, but when.
For Kyle Johnson, a 33-year-old UPS delivery driver from The Villages, that day came Dec. 29, 2023, a little over a year after Addi's first accident.
Heading home around 10:30 p.m., Johnson found himself in the midst of two drivers who were apparently street racing. The NHTSA categorizes distracted driving as any form of activity that prevents the safe operation of a vehicle. It could include applying makeup, texting, eating or in this case, racing.
"I was in the right lane, near the Casa Blanca intersection doing about 60 miles per hour behind a semi and saw two cars, driving erratically, racing each other aggressively, weaving in and out of traffic," Johnson recalled. "One of them got behind me and tapped my back bumper. When you're going 60, it's hard to maintain control when you get hit like that."
Johnson's car rolled five times during the crash, ejecting him through the sunroof. A good Samaritan, Michelle Garcia, stopped to check on Johnson and call for help, he said.
"It must have been the adrenaline, but I remember laying on the ground, trying to get up," Johnson said. "It wasn't the pain that stopped me, it was the fact that my body was like rubber at that point."
Johnson sustained a fractured spine, six broken ribs and a broken clavicle. Doctors also had to remove his spleen, which ruptured during the crash.
Johnson spent eight months on disability and returned to his job with UPS in August.
Even though he's made remarkable progress over the last few months, the pain is still a factor he has to deal with every day in a job requiring physical labor, he said.
"I worked really hard to get to the point where I'm at in my career now," Johnson said. "Where I'm making enough money and have benefits to take care of my loved ones."
And now, because of distracted driving, he has to wonder whether the dream he has worked for will disintegrate into dust.
"I might not be able to do my job." Johnson said. "It's hard. It hurts. It's still too early to tell whether this is pain I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I may have to retire early from this job with this company that I love."
Like Addi, Sharon Watt, a recruiter who lives in Ohio, suffered a brain injury at age 4. That, more than a half-century later, would lead her to Maricopa.
Watt, now 55, chased a ball in front of an oncoming car, operated by a distracted driver, as a toddler. The accident wrecked the entire left side of her body, partially collapsing the left side of her skull. She spent the next year recovering from the accident in a full-body cast.
Such a devastating set of injuries meant Watt had to undergo many surgeries afterward. She said she thought she was through with them after a procedure in her late 30s.
However, in April last year, she hit a tree while riding an ATV. On the outside, she was unharmed, but her brain -- that was a different story.
"A few months later, in August, I'd lost the ability to speak, just like a stroke patient," Watt said. "I had a numbness from the middle of my legs down and I couldn't stop crying."
After many attempts to diagnose what happened during that ATV collision, along with a steady diet of many different antidepressants, a therapist eventually realized Watt's problem was not emotional but something physically wrong with her brain.
Watt finally got the help she needed from Pittsburgh-based concussion specialist Dr. Charles Simkovich, who diagnosed the issue in short order: He surmised, while the doctors were able to put Watt back together at the age of 4, they didn't consider the growth of her skull and perform the adjustments needed to treat the many fissures that lined her cranium as she grew older.
As a result, the left and right sides of her brain stopped communicating with each other.
Simkovich performed several pressure treatments to adjust Watt's cranial joints, which provided relief, emotional and otherwise, that Watt said she never expected.
"It unlocked memories I didn't even know I had," Watt said. "My dreams were so vivid. My vision has even improved."
Watt said she became aware of Addi's story -- and the Maricopa community -- when she researched the survival odds for someone who experienced such a traumatic injury at such an early age, like she did in 1972.
"I googled the chances and Addi's story came up at the very bottom of the page, about 12 stories down," Watt said of InMaricopa's February piece, "Miracle child," the first part in this series.
She also stumbled across the Addi's Miracle Facebook page, and from there, Watt and Sandell met virtually.
The two for months have found solidarity talking about their common experiences and Sandell's aspirations to set up a nonprofit.
To call the meeting well-timed would have been an understatement, Sandell said. Not only did Watt's situation mirror Addi's, but she also has an advanced degree in nonprofit administration.
Watt years ago started her own nonprofit, Three In One, a mental, spiritual and physical health education outfit. Sandell's new venture has much to learn from TIO.
"You have to have a clear, defined mission," Watt said of a successful nonprofit. "That's where it all starts."
For Sandell, there's a lot of work ahead to start a nonprofit and to get the word out about the dangers of distracted driving, she said.
With the injuries she has seen firsthand, Sandell said she feels it's a mission worth undertaking.
"This affects way too many people," Sandell said. "Addi will have her challenges for the rest of her life but think about the woman who hit her. She has to live with that for the rest of her life."
Sandell said the only way forward is education.
"I feel like we really need to be drilling it in on our kids because there's just a whole generation of people not driving safely," Sandell said. "And it's adults too. They don't understand the dangers. It's easy for people to not comprehend what's at stake if they've never had a family member suffer a life-changing injury."
Sandell said she's in the process of figuring out her next legal steps in setting up her nonprofit. For now, she launched a website, SurvivorsAgainstDistractedDriving.com, where visitors can leave their email address to receive future alerts about the nonprofit's goings-on.
"Hopefully, we'll be able to show them what that looks like," Sandell said, "and how people are being affected for the rest of their lives because of distracted driving."