After I Died

Seven years ago, I was killed in a collision with a freight truck. It took 125 strangers, my husband and the words of a Nobel Prize winner to bring me back.

- Colleen Kelly Alexander

The day I died was the perfect New England fall morning. It was 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2011, when I set out on the 20-kilometer bike ride home from work along the Connecticut shoreline. The sun was brilliant against the blue sky, and the leaves were starting to change colors.

It was an exciting time for me. I loved my job as a program manager at Peace- Jam, an organization that educates kids about leaders in the peace movement. At home, my husband of one year, Sean, and I were trying to have a baby.

Sean, a mail carrier, was working, so I’d made plans with a friend for a long ride later that afternoon. But I would never meet up with her.

As I settled into the right-hand lane of a busy avenue, a freight truck turned in my direction from a side street. He slowed at the corner. We made eye contact. Then, for reasons I’ll never know, he accelerated.

There was nothing I could do but scream. I was knocked down onto my left side; my legs got tangled up with my bike. I heard snapping and grinding as the truck’s front tires drove over me. I felt my insides cracking when the back tires did the same.

People came rushing from all directions as the truck rumbled away. “Oh my God!” I heard. “She’s alive.”

I raised my head just enough to see something bright white and yellow protruding from my leg: bone, tendons and fatty tissue. The skin had peeled right off most of the lower half of my body, along with my clothing. There wasn’t any normal flesh to see. My abdomen was opened up, and I was bleeding out.

A woman with blond hair appeared and sat on the road with me, holding my head. One man tried to stop the fleeing driver. Another ran over carrying an emergency heat blanket he had in his car. He began screaming out orders: “You, stop traffic! You, hold her head still! You, cover her abdomen with this! Holy...God. Hang in there, girl. Hang in there.”