July 31, 2022 at 10:52 p.mUpdated 4 hours ago
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A Stratford woman was seriously injured after a wrong-way crash a year ago that warned people to slow down and avoid getting on the wrong side of roads.
Jailisa Reyes, 29, lost her left leg after a drunk driver caused a head-on collision while going the wrong way on Route 8 in Beacon Falls last August.
Reyes hopes that by telling her story no one has to go through what she went through.
News 12 Connecticut exclusively obtained state police body cam video that shows first responders approaching a seriously injured Reyes at the hospital. A pick-up truck had crashed into the side of his vehicle, overturning it.
“My car flipped,” Reyes recalled. She is a 29-year-old single mother with a 9-year-old son. “I remember being so desperate in the hospital, like, I just… I thought my life was over.”
Records obtained by News 12 Connecticut say Moyan Henry, 35, of Waterbury, was later arrested. Charges against him included driving while intoxicated, going the wrong way on a highway, causing a head-on collision and leaving a path of destruction.
Reyes said his struggles extended far beyond the scene of the crash.
“I had a lot of operations. I have one in December,” she said.
His son remembers the long separations from his mother due to those surgical interventions at the height of the pandemic. He said it broke him and made him cry every time. There have been no shortage of tears, the family said, during what has been a long and painful recovery.
Officials said there have been 20 wrong-way crashes so far this year in Connecticut. That’s a dramatic increase from previous years, prompting the state to install flashing beacon warning systems to recognize and then warn errant drivers.
“I’m going to urge the Department of Transportation to take the Connecticut experience, the model that we offer here, and implement it across the country, because we can prevent wrong-way accidents,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Reyes said she is determined not to give up and make a full recovery. She is determined to return to what she calls “something resembling a normal, happy life.”
“It was a difficult thing for me for a long, long time,” Reyes said. “It’s still hard. I’m just learning to deal with it because I have to move on. I can’t let it get me down. I have to keep fighting to learn this new life I have to live.”