ORLANDO, Fla. —
WESH 2’s Sunrise reporter Paola Tristan Arruda was nearly killed in a car crash in August after the car she was riding in was hit by another driver.

Nearly nine months after the crash, Tristan Arruda sat down with WESH 2’s Traffic Anchor Meaghan Mackey to share her story of survival and a message for drivers.

The crash happened late in the evening on Aug. 7 at the corner of Interstate 4 and Lee Road.

According to Florida Highway Patrol, a driver ran a red light on the eastbound exit ramp from I-4 to Lee Road and smashed into the car Tristan-Arruda was riding in.

Tristan-Arruda had just gotten food with her friend and was a passenger in the car.

The impact was so hard that she was thrown into the back seat of the vehicle, despite wearing her seat belt.

Tristan Arruda said she does not remember anything from the crash and only remembers waking up in the hospital one week later.

“I don’t remember getting into my friend’s car, I don’t remember going to McDonald’s, and I certainly don’t remember the accident,” Tristan Arruda said.

She was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center where she was immediately met by Dr. Howard Smith and his team.

Smith was her trauma surgeon and said he sees patients every shift in the emergency room.

“Traffic is really bad in Orlando, and our roads are overcrowded. We have a ton of visitors. Quite often, people don’t know where they are going, they are not paying attention because they are on their cell phones,” Smith said.

Tristan-Arruda broke her arm and hip in the crash, dislocated one of her elbows, fractured her wrist, fingers and a portion of her spine, and also had a head injury and a number of internal injuries.

“I never thought that something like this would happen to me, and it sounds so cliche, you hear people say it all the time,” Tristan Arruda said. “One split decision that was to no fault of my own, I could have lost my life because someone made a decision to run a red light, to be distracted.”

Dr. Joshua Langford was Tristan Arruda’s orthopedic surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Langford said Tristan Arruda’s positive attitude and determination to heal played a big role in the process.

“When it comes to traffic in Orlando, you can only be so good at driving. It’s about how bad everyone else is,” Langford said.

In total, Tristan Arruda was in the hospital for more than a week and then spent about a month in a rehabilitation center working to heal.

She returned to work at WESH 2 in December, nearly four months after the crash.

In terms of the driver who hit Tristan Arruda, he was not hurt and was cited by the Florida Highway Patrol for running a red light, driving with a suspended license and having no proof of insurance.

Tristan Arruda believes she is lucky to be alive, and the only thing that could have prevented this is the other driver obeying the traffic signal.

“I’m grateful to be alive, I’m grateful to have the support that I had. It’s going to be a long time until I feel 100% myself,” Tristan Arruda said.