At the age of 24, the arthritis in Darrin Bynum’s knees and lower back makes him ache when rain approaches. He fears being unable to play with his kids someday due to his physical limitations.
A car accident with a drunk driver at the age of 18 left him with two broken femurs, two metal rods in his legs and a memory that will haunt him for the rest of his life.
“To this day I still deal with it,” Bynum said. “Every day.”
Survivors of drunk driving accidents face many challenges that greatly impact their day-to-day lives. Mental health professionals say many struggle with guilt, depression and anxiety in addition to their bodily injuries. Methods of coping often differ based on the survivor’s outlook on life.
Darrin’s story is just one example of how survivors of fatal car accidents are working to cope.
Laughter filled the Chevrolet Aveo as four friends cruised toward a party in Tupelo the evening after supporting friends and family at a high school graduation in New Albany, Missississippi, on May 24, 2008.
Nobody had been drinking, and none of the young men in the car did drugs. They were looking to celebrate and catch up with one another after several months spent apart at different universities.
Darrin Bynum and Julius Dozier were roommates at Ole Miss. A.J. Cannon was a student at Delta State University, and Xavier Knox was a freshman at Mississippi State University. None of the men in the car were wearing seatbelts.
Music filled the car, and the friends sang along, every now and then reminiscing about old times spent growing up together. The car rolled to a stop at a red light.
In a split second, bright lights filled the vehicle as another car swerved three lanes over, running the red light and heading straight for the Aveo.
“As soon as I looked up all I saw were white lights in front of me,” said Xavier Knox, the driver of the car. “I’m not sure what happened, but it was all just so fast that you couldn’t move. There was nothing I could do.”
The car flipped and landed on its left side.
Later, police discovered that the woman driving the car that hit the four friends was driving under the influence of alcohol. Her two children were in the car with her as well and sustained minor cuts and scrapes.
Injuries resulting from the accident were inevitable. Both Knox and Bynum immediately felt the consequences of the crash. Bynum’s legs were pinned inside the car by the seat in front of him leaving him unable to move.
“As a policeman got me out, I felt this horrible pain. It was just awful, and I couldn’t take it,” said Bynum, who had been sitting behind the driver. “I began to cry. I was screaming.”
Julius Dozier and A.J. Cannon died on impact.
“I remember looking up and A.J. is looking directly at me,” Knox said. “I could literally see him exhale as the life just left his body.”
While Bynum sustained two broken legs in the crash, Knox received far more extensive injuries. When the young men arrived at the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, health professionals discovered two broken bones in Knox’s left forearm, a broken right femur, a dislocated left hip, lacerated liver, holes in his intestines and a bruised left lung.
Knox experienced multiple relocations and a month in the Regional Medical Center in Memphis before he was allowed to go home. The amount of time spent receiving care and the lack of insurance of the drunk driver took its toll on the Knox family.
“Luckily for me my father has military insurance and that covered a lot of the cost and my mother had me covered as well so the strain of the costs isn’t as bad, but you’re still talking about at least $200,000 in medical bills,” said Knox, whose insurance was able to only cover a portion of the $200,000 total.
Both Bynum and Knox had to go through physical therapy to learn how to walk again, while simultaneously working to cope with the loss of two of their best friends.
Angie Everett Yerby, administrative director over Inpatient Post-Acute Rehabilitation Services at the North Mississippi Medical Center, said physical injuries definitely affect the grief stages of accident survivors.
“The mental and emotional pain of having physical injuries on top of the mental and emotional pain of grief and loss is going to prolong the grief phase,” she said.
Yerby said the way survivors handle grief has a lot to do with their outlook on life.
“Previous convictions, beliefs and life experiences really come into play when people begin to process grief,” she said. “It very much affects how they handle the pain.”
Bynum had trouble going back to Ole Miss in the spring of 2009, after his accident. Everything he saw reminded him of his roommate Julius, but he pushed himself to succeed, regardless. He graduated with a general studies degree in music, theater and psychology in May 2014. Bynum’s legs still tend to lock up occasionally and he does not have the flexibility that he once had, but he chooses to see the silver lining.
“I put my trust in God to be my comforter and just to hold me,” Bynum said. “I just have a very, very thankful spirit.”
Knox says the trauma from the accident continues to take a toll on his body, but he has worked to push through that.
“I’ve tried to remain active so my body doesn’t hurt so bad,” Knox said. “I think more for me now is the mental thing of it all. It’s kind of hard to get over something like that.”
After trying to go back to Mississippi State in the spring of 2009, Knox became depressed and decided he needed to get away. He moved to California to live with his father and just recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Knox attends weekly counseling sessions as he continues to process the events of the accident. He admits he often deals with guilt, as the driver, over what he could have done to prevent the scenario.
Yerby said this is a common thing for the driver to feel.
“You have another layer of guilt there that the person in the passenger seat or the backseat does not have,” she said.
Knox said time has helped.
“This is something that no one can change, so you have to accept it for what it is and try to move forward.”
Both young men acknowledge that this accident changed their lives forever, but they are working toward achieving peace with their new lives.
“They have to establish a new normal in their lives,” Yerby said. “Survivors are never going to necessarily be what we call normal, in the sense that they will be the same as they once were, and that is okay.”
-Clancy Smith
