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12 years after deadly Route 30 crash, Lancaster man shares his story of overcoming a 1% chance of survival

  • Aniya Faulcon

 Kelly Johnson

Airdate: April, 4th, 2023

Ethan Poetic, Lancaster resident, miraculously survived life-threatening injuries that he received from a deadly car crash on Route 30.

A little over 12 years later, Poetic joined us on The Spark to share how he recovered and thrived after an accident that doctors said, he had a 1% chance of surviving.

Poetic grew up in a single parent household of five in Coatesville, where he faced many challenges like the death of his older brother by gun violence, which he said, caused him to become an older brother to his younger siblings overnight.

Poetic also said, sports and a program with a Lancaster nonprofit organization, Children Deserve a Chance Foundation, were therapeutic and helped to keep him on the right track towards a college education.

Before Poetic could start his college classes, he was seriously injured in an accident on Lincoln Highway East (Route 30), when the Jeep he was riding in collided with a tractor-trailer. As a result, a 3-year-old boy died from his injuries and the person driving the tractor-trailer died upon impact.

“The last thing I remember seeing, like I said many times, was the gas station and the outlets on Route 30. And then I wake up in the ICU unit sometime later,” Poetic said. “For me, my story was I faced a 99% chance of death versus a 1% chance of life.”

Although, doctors thought he wouldn’t make it through the night of the crash and his family almost lost hope, Poetic was able to make a full recovery after rehab and become a motivational speaker, life coach, poet and author of The Inspirational Story of Ethan A. Poetic: Chronicles of Adversities, Education, Sports, Relationships, and Resiliency; after he was paralyzed in his throat due to a feeding tube.

Poetic said, he hopes his story will inspire people to overcome their personal adversities.

 

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