By Andrea Dailey
Jaclyn Partin was a freshman at Stephen F. Austin when she learned the hard way about wearing a seat belt even if she was in the back seat and she has the scar to prove it.
One night Jaclyn decided to go with a girl friend, Tiffanni, to go hang out at a friend's house in Mt. Enterprise. Later on in the night they wanted to get something to eat. Jaclyn and two other guys hopped into a car to go get food at Taco Bell.
It was after midnight and the back roads were dark. They ended up not being able to control the car and ended up in a ditch. Jaclyn was not wearing her seat belt in the back seat and flew into the headrest in front of her.
"I was so stupid, I always wear my seatbelt," she said.
She instantly knew something was wrong; her face was throbbing.
After the vehicle came to a stop they got out of the car and instantly Jaclyn saw blood on her shirt. Jaclyn's eye was bleeding from the impact of the collision. She said that she was fine and just wanted to get back. Her two friends were not hurt because they were wearing their seat belts.
They were able to start the car with no problem, but it started to make noises. Because the car was making noise they decided not to drive it home. Jaclyn called her friend to have them pick the three of them up.
Jaclyn did not want her mother to know that she was in a wreck. She told her mother that she was staying with Tiffanni for the night. Jaclyn thought that her eye would be better in the morning,
"I put ice on my eye all night and when I woke up I couldn't even open my eye," she said.
The injury looked like it was more than just minor. She had swelling that went from one side of her face to the other side of her nose. She knew she could not hide this from her mother.
When Jaclyn went home her mother immediately took her to the hospital to see if anything was broken. Her mother is an x-ray technician and had seen this many times, "She thought my eye socket or my nose was fractured because of how swollen my face was," Jaclyn said. Her face had no dimension to it and she couldn't open her eye.
"It was just gruesome," is the only phrase Jaclyn can describe what she looked like. She said that she did not look like her normal self. She was scared that she was not going to be able to see well out of her left eye anymore.
This young woman who was only 19 years old at the time learned that if she wants to keep her characteristics of her face then she needs to wear her seat belt at all times. She has a scar above her left eye that reminds her to wear her seat belt no matter what.
