At the age of 22 Julie Lambert caused an accident which seriously injured her friend, John (not his real name). Later she was sued for negligence in a civil lawsuit that lasted two years.
Although the accident occurred over thirty years ago, I still remember it and think about the person who was injured almost every day.
It was the summer after I graduated from college, and I had taken some new friends to my grandparents’ Minnesota lake cabin for a day of waterskiing. While I was driving their boat, unfortunately we had a terrible accident and one of my friends was struck in the head by the motor propeller. He was airlifted to hospital having sustained very serious injuries.
Later that evening, a nurse told us that John’s skull had been fractured and he needed surgery. She warned us that he might not survive the night and that there was nothing that we could do. Reluctantly, we left the hospital and went home to wait for news.
John did in fact survive the night and the surgery, but he sustained traumatic injuries that would change the course of his life. After the accident, my grandparents and I wanted to visit John in the hospital, but we were told we weren’t welcome.
“I was devastated by what I had done.”
Having always seen myself as responsible and capable, the accident shook the core of my identity. As the eldest of three children, I’d helped care for my younger siblings while my parents worked, I’d worked as a nurse’s aid during college, and even with friends. I was the caretaker, reliable and trustworthy. And so, on the cusp of entering adulthood, the accident decimated who I believed myself to be.
At the end of that summer, I moved cross-country to start a new job, hoping it might be a chance to have a fresh start. However, I had no family or friends to support me as I entered a two-year civil lawsuit.
Most people either didn’t know what to say or wanted to blame and condemn. Very few people expressed any compassion or kindness and I learned to not talk about what had happened. Friends and family left me alone to deal with the aftermath of the accident and the lawsuit. My parents, a police officer and a nurse respectively, didn’t have the emotional resources or capacity to show their care and concern. Truthfully, I’ve never understood their response.
Although I was not physically injured in the accident, the multiple shocks of having maimed someone, being sued, and lack of family support led to therapy and a diagnosis of PTSD. I was at a loss as to how to describe what I had done. I had not intended to hurt anyone that day in the boat, but I had not prevented it.
“Was I a perpetrator? A survivor? Somehow also a victim?”
There was no term that accurately described who I was and without precise words, I became invisible. The only people with whom I could talk about the accident were my therapist and the insurance company’s lawyer.
The first time I saw John again was two years after the accident when he walked into the lawsuit mediation room, with a cane. By this time, more parties were involved in the suit, including my grandparents, the boat manufacturer and boat dealership. Looking back, perhaps the lawsuit was less about accountability and more about compensating John for his injury, medical support and possible lost future income. It was a financial transaction and John’s lawyers were able to secure the amount of money they wanted.
Thankfully, there was no need for a trial with jurors. After the mediation, I asked to speak to John privately and he agreed. We were shown to a small kitchenette and once we were alone, I told him how deeply sorry I was for all that he had endured. He replied, “I never blamed you.” I was relieved by his response.
As the years passed and I got married and had children, I continued to think about John. Twenty years after the accident I still had many questions about his well-being. Although my therapist at the time advised me against contacting him, perhaps because of the additional pain I might cause him and myself, I was intent on reaching out to him. I had to know what happened to him and although I believed he had offered me forgiveness that day in the kitchenette, I needed to know if what he had said was still true. Did he still not blame me?
There was no model conversation to follow or community with whom I could process my experience or ask for counsel. I had to trust myself. My email exchange with him was short, but friendly and I felt satisfied that he was doing well. It appeared he had made some kind of peace with what had happened. He even asked if I wanted to be friends on Facebook. I declined, but I understood that again, like in the kitchenette, he had granted me grace.
The first time I heard the term “moral injury” may have been when a friend sent me Alice Gregory’s article in the New Yorker in 2017, “The Sorrow and the Shame of the Accidental Killer.” Although moral injury has mostly been applied to veterans, it is now also applied to people who have unintentionally killed or harmed someone.
“According to research, moral injury can occur when someone perpetrates, fails to prevent, or bears witness to acts that transgress their own deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”
The difference between PTSD and moral injury is that the person with moral injury carries so much shame and guilt they withdraw from friends and family and are no longer able to access the support they desperately need in order to feel worthy again. At last, I understood much more about why I’d felt so isolated and alone since the accident. I had violated my own moral code of goodness.
I wasn’t aware until very recently, thanks to the kind words of a friend, that I have been mired in something I could not name—prolonged grief, and perhaps the grief prevented me from reckoning with a decision I made thirty years ago. I took the risk of driving a boat and pulling a water-skier and, ultimately, I failed to keep John safe. No matter the outcome of the lawsuit, whether or not I was culpable, I was responsible. I broke the tacit promise between me and John that I could operate the boat safely and that he would not be harmed.
I will probably always be haunted by the question, “how does one live after unintentionally harming someone?” One of my therapists explained that life was like a huge tapestry woven with threads representing different events. Some threads were silk, cotton, linen. And other threads were less pleasing to the touch—twine or barbed wire, but each thread needed to be woven into the tapestry to prevent holes from occurring.
“I had to figure out how to accept my humanity and assimilate the accident into the tapestry of my life.”
I had to accept nuance—yes, I was responsible for the accident and no, I’m not a terrible person—and know that both of these seemingly contradictory ideas are true. This is the reason I believe forgiveness is not linear, nor progressive, and possibly not absolute. Some days I move forward and some days I move backward.
“Forgiveness is more of a practice, a cyclical process that may need to be renewed every time I’m reminded of my humanity.”
It’s a commitment to remember what I’ve learned and what I know— that while John and I live in an interconnected web, the harm I unintentionally caused does not negate my inherent goodness.
The shock of unintentionally harming someone can cause serious trauma and for many years Julie searched for peace and self-compassion, something she was only able to consider after joining The Hyacinth Fellowship, an organisation that provides support, resources and community to people who have unintentionally harmed or killed another person.
At the age of 22 Julie Lambert caused an accident which seriously injured her friend, John (not his real name). Later she was sued for negligence in a civil lawsuit that lasted two years.
Although the accident occurred over thirty years ago, I still remember it and think about the person who was injured almost every day.
It was the summer after I graduated from college, and I had taken some new friends to my grandparents’ Minnesota lake cabin for a day of waterskiing. While I was driving their boat, unfortunately we had a terrible accident and one of my friends was struck in the head by the motor propeller. He was airlifted to hospital having sustained very serious injuries.
Later that evening, a nurse told us that John’s skull had been fractured and he needed surgery. She warned us that he might not survive the night and that there was nothing that we could do. Reluctantly, we left the hospital and went home to wait for news.
John did in fact survive the night and the surgery, but he sustained traumatic injuries that would change the course of his life. After the accident, my grandparents and I wanted to visit John in the hospital, but we were told we weren’t welcome.
“I was devastated by what I had done.”
Having always seen myself as responsible and capable, the accident shook the core of my identity. As the eldest of three children, I’d helped care for my younger siblings while my parents worked, I’d worked as a nurse’s aid during college, and even with friends. I was the caretaker, reliable and trustworthy. And so, on the cusp of entering adulthood, the accident decimated who I believed myself to be.
At the end of that summer, I moved cross-country to start a new job, hoping it might be a chance to have a fresh start. However, I had no family or friends to support me as I entered a two-year civil lawsuit.
Most people either didn’t know what to say or wanted to blame and condemn. Very few people expressed any compassion or kindness and I learned to not talk about what had happened. Friends and family left me alone to deal with the aftermath of the accident and the lawsuit. My parents, a police officer and a nurse respectively, didn’t have the emotional resources or capacity to show their care and concern. Truthfully, I’ve never understood their response.
Although I was not physically injured in the accident, the multiple shocks of having maimed someone, being sued, and lack of family support led to therapy and a diagnosis of PTSD. I was at a loss as to how to describe what I had done. I had not intended to hurt anyone that day in the boat, but I had not prevented it.
“Was I a perpetrator? A survivor? Somehow also a victim?”
There was no term that accurately described who I was and without precise words, I became invisible. The only people with whom I could talk about the accident were my therapist and the insurance company’s lawyer.
The first time I saw John again was two years after the accident when he walked into the lawsuit mediation room, with a cane. By this time, more parties were involved in the suit, including my grandparents, the boat manufacturer and boat dealership. Looking back, perhaps the lawsuit was less about accountability and more about compensating John for his injury, medical support and possible lost future income. It was a financial transaction and John’s lawyers were able to secure the amount of money they wanted.
Thankfully, there was no need for a trial with jurors. After the mediation, I asked to speak to John privately and he agreed. We were shown to a small kitchenette and once we were alone, I told him how deeply sorry I was for all that he had endured. He replied, “I never blamed you.” I was relieved by his response.
As the years passed and I got married and had children, I continued to think about John. Twenty years after the accident I still had many questions about his well-being. Although my therapist at the time advised me against contacting him, perhaps because of the additional pain I might cause him and myself, I was intent on reaching out to him. I had to know what happened to him and although I believed he had offered me forgiveness that day in the kitchenette, I needed to know if what he had said was still true. Did he still not blame me?
There was no model conversation to follow or community with whom I could process my experience or ask for counsel. I had to trust myself. My email exchange with him was short, but friendly and I felt satisfied that he was doing well. It appeared he had made some kind of peace with what had happened. He even asked if I wanted to be friends on Facebook. I declined, but I understood that again, like in the kitchenette, he had granted me grace.
The first time I heard the term “moral injury” may have been when a friend sent me Alice Gregory’s article in the New Yorker in 2017, “The Sorrow and the Shame of the Accidental Killer.” Although moral injury has mostly been applied to veterans, it is now also applied to people who have unintentionally killed or harmed someone.
“According to research, moral injury can occur when someone perpetrates, fails to prevent, or bears witness to acts that transgress their own deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”
The difference between PTSD and moral injury is that the person with moral injury carries so much shame and guilt they withdraw from friends and family and are no longer able to access the support they desperately need in order to feel worthy again. At last, I understood much more about why I’d felt so isolated and alone since the accident. I had violated my own moral code of goodness.
I wasn’t aware until very recently, thanks to the kind words of a friend, that I have been mired in something I could not name—prolonged grief, and perhaps the grief prevented me from reckoning with a decision I made thirty years ago. I took the risk of driving a boat and pulling a water-skier and, ultimately, I failed to keep John safe. No matter the outcome of the lawsuit, whether or not I was culpable, I was responsible. I broke the tacit promise between me and John that I could operate the boat safely and that he would not be harmed.
I will probably always be haunted by the question, “how does one live after unintentionally harming someone?” One of my therapists explained that life was like a huge tapestry woven with threads representing different events. Some threads were silk, cotton, linen. And other threads were less pleasing to the touch—twine or barbed wire, but each thread needed to be woven into the tapestry to prevent holes from occurring.
“I had to figure out how to accept my humanity and assimilate the accident into the tapestry of my life.”
I had to accept nuance—yes, I was responsible for the accident and no, I’m not a terrible person—and know that both of these seemingly contradictory ideas are true. This is the reason I believe forgiveness is not linear, nor progressive, and possibly not absolute. Some days I move forward and some days I move backward.
“Forgiveness is more of a practice, a cyclical process that may need to be renewed every time I’m reminded of my humanity.”
It’s a commitment to remember what I’ve learned and what I know— that while John and I live in an interconnected web, the harm I unintentionally caused does not negate my inherent goodness.
The shock of unintentionally harming someone can cause serious trauma and for many years Julie searched for peace and self-compassion, something she was only able to consider after joining The Hyacinth Fellowship, an organisation that provides support, resources and community to people who have unintentionally harmed or killed another person.
