EDINBURG, Maine — Sakura Violette remembers her Subaru careening across Interstate 95, the sky and ground flashing by her windows 10 times as the SUV flipped down an embankment and into some trees.
“All I could think was live, live, live. Don’t feed that blackness. If I see black, I am dead,” the 21-year-old graduate student recalled on Tuesday, shortly after being released from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
Violette credited her survival of the rollover on Monday partly to the presence of her boss, chiropractic Dr. Rick Ames, and another doctor, a physician from Canada, for keeping her calm after she crawled from the wreckage back onto the highway near mile marker 213.
With blood pooling in her lungs, Violette concentrated on the voices of Ames and the other doctor, whose name Violette never learned, as they urged her to stay awake and be still. The chiropractic assistant feared that panic would induce hyperventilation that would cause her to spit up blood and pass out, but the doctors, Violette said, kept her calm.
“I wasn’t falling out of consciousness, but them being there and calming me down, especially seeing a familiar face, really helped,” Violette said. “Dr. Ames actually started praying for me. I am not religious, but it helped me a lot.”
“I thought, just stay alive. Don’t fall asleep or you are going to die,” Violette added. “Just listen to their voices, listen to their voices, and especially don’t just go into shock.”
Violette’s aunt, Dawn Boyington of Millinocket, said it was “an act of God” that the two doctors happened to come upon the accident. Boyington attributed Violette’s being able to withstand her injuries to her being a powerlifter and strength and conditioning coach.
“If she wasn’t as physically fit as she is, she would have been seriously damaged. She is so controlled in everything she does, physically. She can tell you exactly how many times that car flipped over. She counted the sky as it flipped around,” Boyington said. “If she is not working, she is lifting or training. That’s the kind of kid she is.”
Attempts to contact Ames were unsuccessful on Tuesday.
From Yokohama, Japan, Violette is studying for a master’s degree in exercise physiology and kinesiology at the University of Maine in Orono, Boyington said.
The accident began with Violette’s right wheels getting caught on the soft shoulder along the right side of the road. Violette said she then overcorrected, which made it worse. Violette was driving from her home in Orono to Ames’ office in Lincoln when the accident occurred at about 1:50 p.m.
Fear that the SUV would explode — the radiator had begun hissing — compelled Violette to climb to the road, she said.
“All I could think was, get out of the car. I stumbled out of the car. I couldn’t breathe well. I got on the ground and started crawling and I got to the highway, was able to get up, wave someone down, and right when someone was coming, I fell over,” Violette said.
A LifeFlight helicopter landed on the highway and took Violette to EMMC, said State Trooper Benjamin Campbell, who is handling the investigation.
Violette’s front air bags failed to deploy, possibly contributing to her injuries, said Boyington, who visited the wrecked SUV on Tuesday. The side air bags did work, however, and Violette was wearing her seat belt. She suffered a bruised left shoulder in the accident.
Violette will stay with Boyington until she recovers from the lung contusions that she suffered. She expects to recover fully. To Violette, the accident imparted a lesson.
“I never had anything like that happen to me before. I just came through some serious stuff. There’s just so much more to live for now,” Violette said. “Everyone needs that crazy thing that happens to them. I am honestly grateful for the experience. Yeah, there are consequences, but I am alive. I can learn and be grateful for a lot of things.”