STANWOOD — Robin House celebrated her 45th birthday a few weeks ago in the hospital.
She had broken bones from head to toe. It will be months before she can walk again.
Still, it was one of the best birthdays she can remember.
“I was just happy to be alive,” House said.
On May 14, the Stanwood woman was driving though Sultan on U.S. 2 headed to Eastern Washington to attend a memorial service honoring her grandmother.
Around 11 a.m., a Bremerton man, 25, swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed head-on into House’s car.
The man “took his eyes off the road to reach down and get a (compact disc),” according to court papers. He’s now charged with second-degree negligent driving.
House was rushed to Providence Everett Medical Center where she spent three weeks being treated for multiple broken bones.
The crash broke her ankle and shattered her knee. It also snapped her shin, 10 ribs and her left clavicle.
On Thursday, she went home for the first time since the accident.
Now, House and her husband, Mike, want some good to come from the crash.
“Hopefully a life is saved or someone is kept out of the hospital,” Robin House said.
The couple believe the crash should be a cautionary tale to people who do anything other than drive while they’re behind the wheel.
“It’s just amazing that you can go from a normal routine to instant terror and anguish,” Mike House said.
Driver inattention is the third leading cause of death of Washington’s roads. Only drunken driving and speed kill more people.
“Driving is a very complex task, it requires people to do several things at the same time,” Washington Traffic Safety Commission Director Lowell Porter said. “It’s really important that when they’re driving, they need to figure out how to be able to concentrate.”
Busy U.S. 2 is notorious for bad wrecks. A total of 157 accidents have ended in deaths or disabling injuries along the highway between Everett and Stevens Pass from 1999 to 2007, according to the state Department of Transportation.
Because of the high accident rate on the highway, officials have pledged to spend $10 million to make safety improvements to the road.
Two weeks after House’s crash, crews began work to install rumble strips. They are designed to alert drivers when they veer over the center line or onto the shoulder.
“It’s a little too late,” House said.
Now, she is trying to figure out how to manage at home after being cared for at the hospital. Her husband built a ramp for the wheelchair she is using to get around in the house. He pulled up carpet and renovated a room to accommodate a hospital bed, a commode and a shower.
The bills are adding up, and the couple has met with lawyers to figure out how to tackle the mounting medical expenses. They also want to determine the best way to seek compensation from the man who caused the accident.
The man accused of causing the crash has been pulled over more than a dozen times for traffic violations since 2001, court records show.
The man was driving someone else’s car during the May crash and now there are questions about whether the owner has insurance, Mike House said.
All that is less important to Robin House than her own recovery.
She worries about her son, 18, who is getting ready to graduate from Stanwood High School. She wants to spend time with her dog, Little Princess Girl, and she wants her life to return to the way it was before the crash, she said.
She avoids thinking about the man whose inattention has been blamed for her suffering.
“I don’t think about him at all,” she said. “I’m just concentrating on getting better and hopefully having a normal life again someday.”
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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