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Bus crash survivors offers hope to others
Updated: June 5, 2008, 6:43 = PM ET
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Haley Scott DeMaria knows that hope can be sorely = tested.
Sixteen years ago, the bus carrying the Notre Dame women's swim team = skidded=20 on the highway in Indiana, slid down an embankment and flipped. DeMaria = was on=20 her back in the snow for an hour after pulling herself from the = wreckage. Two=20 teammates were killed. Most of the other 34 people on the bus sustained = minor=20 injuries.
Scott DeMaria, now 34, has written a book, "What Though The Odds" -- = a line=20 from the Notre Dame fight song -- describing what happened on Jan. 24, = 1992, and=20 how her teammates, classmates and community helped her maintain hope. = Her goal=20 is to inspire others by her journey.
"What I looked at within myself was I have this gift, there was a = reason I=20 healed," she said. "I truly feel like this is my calling, to reach out = to=20 people. That's very satisfying to me. It used to be difficult to do = because=20 again it was sort of reliving what I had been through."
For years she couldn't talk about what happened on that cold, snowy = night=20 without crying.
One moment the women were watching the closing credits of the movie = "Dying=20 Young" starring Julia Roberts, and the next, the lives of everyone on = board=20 changed forever.
In 2000, she married Jamie DeMaria, a former Notre Dame swim team = manager,=20 and was happy to move to Annapolis, Md., where people wouldn't know her = as a bus=20 crash survivor. She liked keeping the story to herself.
But the few times she did share her story with people facing = challenges, she=20 found it inspired them. That motivated her. Finding herself the happy=20 stay-at-home mother of two, it became easier to talk about the = ordeal.
What really inspired her, though, were the memories of her two fallen = teammates, Colleen Hipp and Margaret "Meghan" Beeler, both of whom were = fellow=20 freshmen.
"They were never, never off my mind. They were the reason I wanted to = walk.=20 They were the reason I wanted to swim. It was the one thing I could do = for=20 them," she said.
She first wiggled her right big toe five days after the accident and = it took=20 a month to learn to walk again. Like a baby, she first rolled on a mat, = then=20 crawled. She took her first steps using a walker, then a cane and = finally walked=20 on her own.
After five months of training, on Oct. 29, 1993, she raced for the = first time=20 since the accident, winning her heat in the 50-yard freestyle with a = time of=20 25.04 seconds, finishing eighth among 30 entrants.
Scott DeMaria graduated with a history degree from Notre Dame a = semester=20 behind her classmates.
She says time has given her a perspective of how blessed she is to = have=20 survived, but still leaves her with questions.
"Really the 'why' question I've asked myself over the past several = years, 16=20 years really, is: 'Why have I come through this the way that I did? Why = did I=20 heal? Why was I able to walk?' And then one step further, 'What should I = be=20 doing with this?"
The answer she came to is sharing her stories. The book being = released June 9=20 is just the start she said. She wants to talk to people facing = challenges and=20 help them get through their troubles. She already is receiving e-mail = from=20 people who have heard about her book.
She said the bus accident still affects most decisions in her life, = including=20 how she raises her children and whom she married.
She knew her husband in college, but they never dated. After = graduation, she=20 returned to her hometown of Phoenix and accepted a job at her old high = school,=20 Xavier College Preparatory, including coaching the swim team, and = eventually=20 became assistant dean of students.
She was a chaperone at the junior-senior prom in 1999 and Jamie = DeMaria, then=20 a graduate student at Florida State, came out to be her date. A student = leaving=20 the prom was killed when her car was struck by a drunken driver. Scott = DeMaria's=20 pain resurfaced and she did what she could to help the girl's classmates = grieve.=20 She was struck by the support DeMaria gave her.
"I knew that night and the following weeks and months afterward that = Jamie=20 was someone who understood that this was something that would always be = a part=20 of my life and something that I needed to do," she said.
As happy as Scott DeMaria is these days, there are still scars. She = broke=20 down in tears when her son came home from kindergarten with a permission = slip to=20 go on a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium on a bus. She couldn't sign = it.
"I couldn't do it. I had to figure out a way to explain to him why he = couldn't go on a bus with his friends on this field trip, which is so = fun," she=20 said.
Instead, she drove her son to the aquarium. A friend took her child = off the=20 bus and went with DeMaria, so she and her son wouldn't be alone.
She has physical scars as well. Last June, she went through two more = painful=20 operations to stabilize and strengthen her spine. But she has nerve = damage which=20 causes numbness in her legs and feet, along with some other physical = challenges=20 that years ago she couldn't have imagined living with.
"But now with the perspective of what are real problems in life, it's = not=20 that bad," she said.
She hopes the release of her book will be the beginning of being able = to=20 reach out to even more people going through difficult times.
"I'm not quite sure how to go about it. But I've also learned to have = faith=20 that everything will work itself out," she said.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire.
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