Florida Teens Were Happily Driving Home from Prom. Then Suddenly Their Car Was Airborne (Exclusive)

Yahoo

16-05-2025

On April 13, Ryan Brown and her boyfriend, Malachi Etienne, were driving his white Toyota Corolla home after prom
Just five minutes from her house, their car was struck, allegedly by a speeding drunk driver
The driver, whom Brown says was going more than 120 mph, reportedly slammed into them from behind, sending their car flying into the airAfter dropping off their friends following a night out after prom, Ryan Brown and her boyfriend, Malachi Etienne, were driving his white Toyota Corolla back to Brown's house. It was just before 2 a.m., and the high school seniors were less than five minutes from her home in Hudson, Fla.
Brown sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through the TikTok videos she had filmed that night, trying to decide which ones to post.
Everything felt light, happy, and carefree — until it wasn't. The last thing Brown, 18, remembers from April 13 is looking down at her phone, and the next moment, feeling a jolt as the car violently shook, as if it were spinning.
'For the first few seconds, I knew we were crashing, but my mind was in complete shock,' she tells PEOPLE exclusively. 'The only thing I could do was close my eyes and cradle my arms over my head. I'm not sure if my mind just slowed everything down, but it honestly felt like we were crashing forever. The last thing I remember was letting out one scream before everything went black.'
What followed was a blur. Brown drifted in and out of consciousness. Only later did she learn what had allegedly caused the crash: a speeding drunk driver had slammed into them from behind — sending their car flying several feet into the air, she says.
She was later told that once the car finally landed in the woods, Etienne, 19, who had been in the driver's seat, repeatedly called her name. But Brown was slumped over the glove compartment, unresponsive — and she hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.
'That part really sticks with me,' she says. 'I keep thinking about what it must've felt like for him in that moment — to see me not moving, not answering, looking like I might be dead. The fear he must've felt. The strength he had to find, not just during the crash but in the moments after."
"He ended up carrying me out of the car through the window," she adds, noting that a man who had been riding a bicycle nearby and witnessed the crash also ran over to help. "If the roles had been reversed, I don't know if I would've had the strength to do what he did. I probably would've just frozen.'
As Brown slowly regained consciousness, she found herself sitting on the ground when emergency services pulled up.
Two first responders approached, began treating her, and urged her to call her sister, the only person she knew would answer her phone at that hour. After reaching her sister, Brown says, "I know I blew up my parents' phone after getting off that call."
She remembers the voices of the first responders and Etienne, who was sitting next to her in the truck, starting to sound distant. Her vision blurred, her fingers tingled, and she couldn't move her neck.
'I was emotionally manic, crying, and in a lot of physical pain,' Brown says, adding that by that point, she had regained most of her awareness. 'I was honestly just super scared about everything. Is this real? What's going to happen to me? Is Malachi going to be alright? I was also just confused because the whole thing still wasn't clicking.'
'That moment was probably the most intense because it's when everything really started to hit me, and I started to fear I was going to die,' she says. 'I remember closing my eyes and praying out loud to God, saying that if He could hear me, to please help and protect me and let me make it out okay.'
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After that, she isn't sure if she passed out or fell asleep, but the next time she opened her eyes — covered in blood, her dress ripped — she was in the ICU. Doctors told her she had broken her neck, with fractures in her C4 and C5 vertebrae. Etienne had also undergone surgery after suffering a cut to his eye.
The medical staff explained that if the impact had been even slightly different, if the fracture had shifted just a few millimeters, she likely wouldn't have survived. Even more shocking, Brown hadn't been wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, yet she wasn't ejected from the vehicle. The only reason she hadn't been thrown from the car, they told her, was because the seatbelt had somehow tangled around her and held her in place.
'I can't exactly capture the feeling, but it was very heavy,' Brown says. 'I shouldn't have been able to make it out of the car, let alone make it to the emergency room or to the next morning — and I didn't even know that. I would have just been gone forever in a moment. It's a weird feeling.'
'I didn't really think much while I was in the ICU," she adds. "I didn't even know being in there was such a big deal until I was out of the hospital."
After a few long and difficult days, Brown was discharged from the hospital. As of now, she's wearing a brace around the clock. She's in the process of scheduling surgery and expects to need physical therapy before she can fully heal.
'It's a long recovery process,' she says, 'but I know it's all temporary.'
"The whole thing alone has been really hard," she adds. "My last high school prom got ruined. My neck will be broken on my graduation. My plans to join the military are crushed, and I'm just very limited to everything in my life right now. All in all, it's been pretty depressing to be honest, but I know I will be okay."
Since coming home, Brown has spent most of her time resting and sleeping. She's incredibly grateful for the friends who have come to visit her, bringing gifts, support and much-needed distractions. But she's especially appreciative of Etienne.
'He's put so much effort into supporting me and just being here during one of the hardest points in my life, especially while going through something traumatic himself,' she says. 'He's very strong.'
The day after Brown returned home, she felt compelled to speak out about the crash. So, she filmed a video recounting the accident and posted it to TikTok. Her goal was to raise awareness and highlight the bigger picture: the ripple effects of drunk driving and how it can devastate real lives.
Then, the video went viral, reaching nearly 700,000 people and counting.
'For a few days, it was mostly just people who knew me personally,' she says. 'As time went on, I started getting flooded with comments and messages of support from people around the world — sharing their own stories and experiences like mine. I didn't feel so alone. Being so seen and uplifted by so many people who don't even know a single thing about me made me feel so much more hopeful. It made me want to be strong. It still brings tears to my eyes when I go back and read everything.'
"While I obviously wanted to advocate for the topic of drunk driving and its effects, I also want everyone who sees my story to know that no matter what obstacles you're thrown, no matter how hard it gets, you are going to be okay," she adds. "Be strong. Life really does go on, time will pass, you will get stronger, and the hard moments will go away. You're not going to be stuck forever, you're not going to be hurting forever."
Read the original article on People