NASCAR star's wife shares graphic details of terrifying car wreck

Eight days on from that terrifying car wreck in North Carolina, Julia Piquet felt the need to unload - the process, she said, was both emotional and theraputic.

On October 6, the 33-year-old wife of NASCAR star Daniel Suarez was driving her Chevy Blazer SUV with her her mother and mother-in-law on board when disaster struck. A shopping trip to Homegoods and Target was about to take a very dark and dangerous turn.

It was on Highway 73 in Iron Station when Julia was struck from behind by a vehicle as she slowed to make a left-hand turn. The contact then sent her vehicle into oncoming traffic, where it was struck again from the side.

The crash scene in the immediate aftermath was shocking as husband Daniel shared the images of the stricken vehicle on social media, describing it as “a very scary day”. He believes the vehicle they were traveling in saved their lives.

Julia, along with her mother Sylvia Tamsma (who is also mother of F1 champion Max Verstappen’s partner Kelly Piquet) and her mother-in-law Rosaline Garza, were all transported to hospital to receive treatment for injuries - which thankfully were not life-threatening.

The positive news is that the trio are all now recovering physically, but Julia’s heartfelt essay on the incident this week provided a graphic take on the mental scars which still remain.

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Julia recounts horrific wreck, and the aftermath

She wrote in detail about her feelings when the first impact happened, and then in the immediate aftermath trying to get her precious passengers out the wreck. Also of the “light fog and awful smell” which immediately filled the vehicle.

Rosaline’s collarbone had been fractured in three places, while Julia spoke of emergency services trying to extract Sylvia from the wrecked vehicle, revealing: “I also remember seeing what started as a bruise grow into a hematoma the size of a golf ball on the right side of her forehead. I remember panicking inside”.

When the trio arrived at hospital, Julia was about to undergo another emotional moment as she was reunited with her mother again. She admitted: “When I was finally directed to her room and saw her lying on her bed, right arm bloodied with burns, all kinds of wires coming from her chest, I crumbled - though I was also relieved to see her crack a smile when she saw me.”

Julia’s account of the whole experience is full of raw emotion, and it captures not only her feelings in the moment, but the emotional scars she still bears now.

The emotional toll of crash survivors

“One thing they don’t tell you about car accidents is the emotional toll it can take on a person; the feelings of guilt from the person driving the car, the random flashbacks to the moment of impact, the loneliness of having to deal with your thoughts around such a traumatic event," she wrote.

“And while you feel gratitude for living to see another day - if you’re lucky to make it out alive and relatively unharmed - there’s also the feeling of realizing how vulnerable you really are. How much is out of your control. How much can be taken away from you in a moment.”

It is a strong and vivid picture which Julia paints with her carefully chosen words, and it cuts deep. We can only imagine the horror of experiencing it first hand.

You can read Julia’s account in full here on her Instagram page, and we wish her, Sylvia and Rosaline the speediest of recoveries from the traumas of October 6.

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