A Connecticut woman nearly lost an eye and can’t turn her head after a slab of concrete from an overpass fell and smashed into her car on Interstate 95 in Westchester last week.
Myra Flores, of Stamford, was sitting in the passenger’s seat of her husband’s car and was headed north on the highway on Saturday when a chunk of concrete crumbled down and crashed through the windshield near Larchmont, New York, sending shards of glass and rock pieces into her face.
"When I was in the moment I wasn't so concerned about my face. I was more concerned about my eye because I just had so much pain," Flores says. "I could hear glass breaking and I could hear the wind coming in through the windshield. I couldn't open my eyes and I couldn't talk."
Flores, who was weeks away from graduating from nursing school at the time of the accident, had to get 15 stitches to hold her right eye shut after doctors pulled pieces of gravel and glass from it. She says she cannot turn her head without pain shooting through her body.
Flores expects to learn in a few days if her vision has been damaged. Then she will have to consider whether her planned career in nursing remains a viable one.
Though she was badly injured, and those injuries may have lasting repercussions, Flores says she is fortunate.
"As a mother, even though I was going through the situation, I was grateful that my children weren't in the car," Flores says. "I can't imagine another human being going through what I'm going through now."
Road crews worked on the scene near the accident Tuesday. NBC 4 New York has reached out to the New York State Thruway Authority for comment.
