Graduation Day
Jacy with her parents and brother after graduating from Muhlenberg College in May 2008
In May 2008, Jacy Good’s life was completely upended just hours after graduating from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. While approaching a green light about halfway home from the ceremony and wrapping up four great years, an oncoming semi truck swerved directly into their lane to avoid another car driven by an 18-year-old who was talking on the phone and had turned left through a red light from the intersecting road.
Both of Jacy’s parents died immediately. Jacy didn’t learn this until months later when she woke up from a coma. For nearly a year after the crash, Jacy fought to survive and regain basic life functions - to talk, walk, and remember who she was - all while processing the news that her parents were gone. What had been a fairly routine 90-minute car ride home that her family had made “so many times'' while Jacy was in school completely changed the trajectory of Jacy’s life.
After my conversation with Greg Cooper last month and hearing about his dad (read that post here), I felt a strong desire to continue this type of work and help spread the messages of people who have been affected by distracted driving in any way I can.
Jacy learned about Eyes Up Ride through social media - she works frequently with SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and TextLess Live More chapters and saw a promotion from TextLess Live More for my ride a number of months ago. She’s been an active follower for all this time and it wasn’t until I was researching victims of distracted driving that I made the connection.
I am so grateful that Jacy and I were able to speak on the phone for nearly an hour. She and her husband, Steve, lead very busy lives speaking multiple times a week at schools, communities, corporations, and more across the country and have totalled over 1,200 events in the 12+ years doing this. It’s some of the most inspiring work I have heard of and we all would benefit from hearing Jacy’s story first hand.
I was a bit nervous heading into our conversation. Once I realized Jacy’s connection to distracted driving, I read about her story and watched her video published by the National Safety Council (and equally as moving, this video for AT&T’s #ItCanWait campaign) and was left with very few words. How does one even pretend to relate or begin to empathize with someone who has experienced a loss like Jacy’s? No one in the world should have to endure a loss of a friend, family member, or relative to a completely avoidable tragedy like those caused by distracted driving. 9 people are killed every day in the United States in crashes involving a distracted driver.
As soon as we got on the phone, Jacy’s kindness and tremendous heart came through the phone and I was able to exhale. I explained that I felt uncomfortable talking about something I, fortunately, can’t remotely relate to. Jacy gets it. She responded that “[her] goal is always that you find something…everyone gets some portion of this even though it’s this big awful story on the whole. You look at the little pieces [and] everyone can find something somewhere they can relate [to].” This makes sense.
Jacy grew up in rural Lancaster Pennsylvania: “my backyard was an Amish farm and I didn’t realize anyone grew up any different.” She had a lot of quality family time. “We were all very close growing up. Another one of those things you don’t realize [in the moment] is something really unique and kind of special.” They spent a lot of time outdoors together - all “that in retrospect was really incredibly meaningful.”
Within the first week of college, her first time spending an extended period of time away from Lancaster, she had met the man she would eventually marry - Steve. After the crash, Steve was Jacy’s rock and was with her every day for the months she was in a coma and in the hospital and is now by her side at every presentation they make together. Their goal is to make sure no one in their audiences have to experience what they went through and continue to live with every day.
Jacy doesn’t remember much from the months after the crash that killed her parents. “As wild as it sounds, I am so lucky I was as badly injured as I was because I don’t remember any of it.” Upon learning of her parents’ death in the hospital, Jacy “had convinced [her]self that this was a big joke that [her] brother and everyone was playing on [her].” When she eventually was released from the hospital in the fall of 2008, Jacy returned to her childhood home. This is when it hit her that her parents were really gone. As she continued to process and understand the horrible situation, Jacy realized “mom and dad aren’t here because of a phone…I don’t have a dad to walk me down the aisle because of a phone.”
Rather than letting the death of her parents and the lifelong injuries she sustained cripple her future, Jacy channeled her energy into sharing her story with as many people as possible. She started out by advocating for legislation that would ban cell phone use in cars in Pennsylvania. Jacy was at a press conference when the law didn’t pass. While this was devastating, this failure in one sense led to interview requests pouring in and her career speaking with Steve started to take off.
What’s incredible about Jacy is her resilience. She has shared her heart-wrenching story with hundreds of thousands of people and relives those moments and emotions surrounding that crash almost constantly, yet has the poise and compassion to speak with a smile and kindness. Her desire to prevent others from going through what she has outweighs the tolls it takes on her physically and emotionally.
There are two things Jacy loved about her parents that she carries with her every day. They are simple yet profound. We can all benefit from these words.
“My mom was all about being nice to other people. You never know what someone else is going through or what their home life is like. She’d improve a life wherever she could. It was through simple things. It meant just as much to her as it did to the person on the receiving end. You get an opportunity every time you get in the car to be kinder. From my dad - the line my dad always used no matter how big or how little [what we were going through] was was always ‘it’ll come out in the wash’ - look for the good in something, be patient, give something time and devote yourself to it, and things tend to work themselves out.”
The single most impactful thing Jacy has noticed through all of her time speaking to young people is challenging them to find something more important on their phone than the lives of her parents or anyone else on the road.
I so appreciate Jacy for sharing her story with me and for all of you. Like she said, we can all connect to some element of her story. Let’s not just read and forget - don’t use your phone when driving. To help, here is a quick action item: Turn on Driving Focus (formerly known as Do Not Disturb While Driving) on your iPhone (learn how in this short article). Nothing is that important while you are on the road - it’s not just your life, it’s the lives of the people you will likely never meet that you are saving. You can read more about Jacy and Steve’s speaking career here. Thank you for reading!
#EyesUpRide
