In a small town in Missouri on a summer day in 1979, and 8-year-old Sara Evans’ life changed forever when she suffered life-threatening injuries after being hit by a car.
Going against the warnings of her parents, a young Sara Evans made the decision to cross a busy road to check the mail. As documented in her 2020 memoir, Born to Fly, Evans recalled that she had been struck by a car driving 75 mph that sent her flying 80 feet off the road.
“The last thing I remember was a flash of blue,” Evans writes in Born to Fly, according to People magazine. “I woke up in a cold room and then came the pain. I was terrified. Both of my legs were in casts. My mom told me that when the car struck me, I landed 80 feet off the road. When they found me, I was curled up in a ball with my left leg mangled and twisted and almost severed in two. They all thought I was dead.”
Evans offered an unflinching look into the the accident and the six-week hospital stay that followed.
“Since my concussion was so serious, they were afraid to put me under anesthesia,” Evans recalls. “They would numb my leg and use a hand drill to get the pin into my knee. I remember the nurses holding me down. Every time Dr. Breedlove brought the drill close, I cried out, ‘Wait!’ Imagine someone drilling into your leg while you’re wide awake. Dr. Breedlove finally just told the nurses to hold me down so he could get it over with.”
The accident’s continuing effects extended far beyond physical injuries.
In the book, Sara opens up about the life-long impact it had on her mental and emotional well-being. Struggles with post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and claustrophobia were some of the things she had to overcome.
In addition to the car accident, Sara has also survived other near-death experiences, including falling into a well and a plane crash. Evans spoke briefly about those incidents in an interview with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and details being struck by a car at age 8. Watch Sara Evans’ interview with Mike Huckabee below.