Katie’s Story
Southern Sports &
Travel, By Darron Thomas
Imagine, if you will,
placing your hand in a boiling pot of water and leaving it
there for thirty three minutes.
An entire Superbowl
halftime show takes approximately thirty three minutes as does watching the
local news in the evenings. Watching an episode of the most popular comedy
series on
television, The Big Bang Theory, takes thirty minutes. There are thirty two
minutes of clock time in a high school varsity basketball game.
On October
13, 2011 at the intersection of Highway 10 and
Choctaw Road, nestled
between Franklinton and Bogalusa, Katie Breland lay motionless for thirty three
minutes pinned underneath the 2010 Nissan
Murano she had just been ejected from.
Katie, a 2005 graduate of Ben’s Ford
Academy, was traveling the road she had traveled many times before but on this
occasion what transpired altered her life
dramatically.
The stop sign at the end
of Choctaw Road was an afterthought this particular day and Katie was struck
violently by an oncoming transport van heading east on its’ way to Bogalusa.
Katie’s front and side airbags deployed but she had already been ejected through
the windshield before they could protect her.
