Hi, my name is Kayla Luschen and I was in a car crash in October of 2019, when I was 19 years old, because my boyfriend at the time had fallen asleep behind the wheel while coming down from what we believed to be MDMA. We ran head-on into a guard rail. Doctors and nurses spent several hours trying to stabilize me and discovered I had a traumatic brain injury. Once I was stable, they performed a craniotomy on me because my brain was swelling passed skull capacity. I spent almost 2 weeks in a medically induced coma with a ventilator. Doctors were trying to lower my family’s expectations because I couldn’t breath on my own the first two times they tried to remove the vent. But that third time I caught my breath. I’m now grateful I didn’t become just some statistic, I definitely had beaten the odds.

The night of the wreck we were both under the influence, we were heading home from a rave. I don’t remember much from the night other than what I was told. And my now ex-boyfriend told me the last thing he remembered before “it going black” was that I was sleeping in the passenger seat. I have been to 4 or 5 different shows by this point and I guess in my head I figured we would be okay because he had safely driven us home once before. Obviously not my brightest idea.

I think about all the things I would’ve changed that night; asking for a ride from one of our friends that was sober and coming back the next morning for my car, getting a hotel or even just sleeping in the car in the venue’s parking lot until we sobered up. But unfortunately, I now have to live with the consequences of both of our actions, while he waked away basically scot-free.