'I'm lucky': WESH 2 reporter reflects on near-fatal car crash

WESH 2's Sunrise Reporter, Paola Tristan-Arruda, was nearly killed in a car crash in August 2024 after the car she was riding in was hit by another driver.Nearly 9 months after the crash, Tristan-Arruda sat down with WESH 2's Traffic Anchor, Meaghan Mackey, to share her story of survival and message for drivers.The crash happened late in the evening on Aug. 7, 2024, at the corner of I-4 and Lee Road.According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a driver ran a red light on the eastbound exit ramp from I-4 to Lee Road and smashed into the car Tristan-Arruda was riding in.Tristan-Arruda had just gotten food with her friend and was a passenger in the car.The impact was so hard that she was thrown into the back seat of the vehicle, despite wearing her seat belt.Tristan-Arruda said she does not remember anything from the crash and only remembers waking up in the hospital one week later."I don't remember getting into my friend's car, I don't remember going to McDonald's, and I certainly don't remember the accident," Tristan-Arruda said.She was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where she was immediately met by Dr. Howard Smith and his team.Smith was her trauma surgeon and said he sees patients every shift in the emergency room."Traffic is really bad in Orlando, and our roads are overcrowded. We have a ton of visitors. Quite often, people don't know where they are going, they are not paying attention because they are on their cell phones," Smith said.Tristan-Arruda broke her arm and hip in the crash, dislocated one of her elbows, fractured her wrist, fingers, and a portion of her spine and also had a head injury and a number of internal injuries."I never thought that something like this would happen to me, and it sounds so cliche, you hear people say it all the time," Tristan-Arruda said. "One split decision that was to no fault of my own, I could have lost my life because someone made a decision to run a red light, to be distracted." Dr. Joshua Langford was Tristan-Arruda's orthopedic surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Langford said Tristan-Arruda's positive attitude and determination to heal played a big role in the process."When it comes to traffic in Orlando, you can only be so good at driving. It's about how bad everyone else is," Langford said.In total, Tristan-Arruda was in the hospital for more than a week and then spent about a month in a rehabilitation center working to heal.She returned to work at WESH 2 in December 2024, nearly four months after the crash.In terms of the driver who hit Tristan-Arruda, he was not hurt and was cited by the Florida Highway Patrol for running a red light, driving with a suspended license, and having no proof of insurance.Tristan-Arruda believes she is lucky to be alive, and the only thing that could have prevented this is the other driver obeying the traffic signal."I'm grateful to be alive, I'm grateful to have the support that I had. It's going to be a long time until I feel 100% myself," Tristan-Arruda said.