How Do you Move Forward After Causing Accidental Death Or Injury (CADI)?

Maryann Gray

Maryann Gray is a social psychologist and educator. She is also what she calls a CADI (Causing Accidental Death or Injury). In 1977, when she was 22 years old, an eight-year-old boy darted out in front of her car and was killed. Maryann runs a website, accidentalimpacts.org, as a resource for other CADI’s.  

Ellary Allis: Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with SevenPonds, Maryann. Would you give a brief summary of what happened when you were 22 and had this accident?

Maryann Gray: Yes. Before I launch into it, I just want to clarify that although I maintain a website and offer information about the experience of accidentally killing someone, I’m not a clinical psychologist or therapist. I’m a social psychologist and trained to do research, but I’m not a clinician. 

That said, here’s the story. Forty-two years ago, when I was 22 years old, I was a graduate student living in Oxford, Ohio, which is a little college town. I was a graduate student at the time, and on a beautiful June day, I was driving on a rural highway outside of town. An 8-year-old boy named Brian darted out in front of my car. I couldn’t avoid hitting him, and he died before he reached the hospital. I was devastated.

Ellary: Can you give some background on how you think it’s impacted your journey in life?

Maryann: I always make a point of saying that I’m well aware that I’m not the victim in this situation. The victim was an 8-year-old boy named Brian and his family. Having said that, I was utterly devastated and traumatized. I had all of the symptoms of acute post-traumatic stress disorder, which was not even in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association at the time. So I didn’t really have any guidance or help for what I was going through. 

I was afraid to drive; I didn’t drive for about two years. The most long-lasting impact of the accident was that I never had children. I was just too scared and I didn’t trust myself to raise a child. I felt very guilty and scared and ashamed and traumatized. For many years I would have flashbacks and intrusive images. I was scared that people would hate me if they knew what I’d done, and I was scared that I would do it again. I didn’t trust myself and I didn’t trust the world. This kid came out of nowhere and it made me feel that the world was a dangerous place. I became a timid person.  

Ellary: What happened immediately after the accident and in the following years?

Maryann: I was not arrested, nor did I face any civil lawsuits. The police said it would be classified as what’s called a classic dart-out. They did a few hours of investigation at the accident scene, and then asked if I could drive myself home. I was like, “No, I can’t drive myself home.” My father came out to Ohio from his home in New York the next day, and he handled all of the logistics for me, which was tremendously helpful. He handled the car and the insurance and got me a lawyer in case I needed one. But I had nobody to help me handle the emotional impact of this. The advice I got from my parents and friends and professors and even the therapist I went to was, “This is a tragic situation. It’s horrible and upsetting, but it wasn’t your fault.” Everyone was saying it wasn’t my fault and I should move on with my life. 

So I tried to move on with my life, and all these symptoms and thoughts went underground. Two years after the accident, I moved to California from Ohio to continue my graduate work. And at that point, I stopped talking about the accident. But I thought about it all the time. So there was this big gap between what was going on internally and how I was presenting myself externally. And it was very lonely. You can’t have deep, authentic relationships if you’re keeping a secret like that. I just sort of felt like, “What right do I have to ask for sympathy? I did this and so it’s my burden to bear alone.” And I treated it like that. 

Things looked OK from the outside. I finished my Ph.D.; I got married; I had friends. Things looked OK, but they weren’t OK.  

Accidental death at Santa Monica Farmer’s Market
Credit: ocregister.com

Ellary: When did you start talking about the accident?  

Maryann: In 2003 there was a terrible accident here in Santa Monica at the Farmer’s Market. An old man drove through a crowd at the Farmer’s Market and left 10 people dead. It was a story that hit close to home. People were understandably furious and anguished, but they were calling this old man a murderer. And that really upset me because I didn’t see it that way. It was evident to me that he’d made a terrible mistake and had lost control, but the idea that he’d intended to kill people just seemed like such a cruel interpretation of a tragedy. So I felt moved to write this little commentary and I sent it off the NPR. 

They ran it on “All Things Considered.” And all of a sudden, friends of mine who had known me for years and didn’t know about the accident were driving home from work and hearing me tell my story. It was a big deal, and I was braced for lots of judgment and criticism. But there was just an outpouring of support. It was such a relief to finally say, “This is who I am and this is what I’ve done.” A huge amount of energy got freed up. 

So then people started contacting me who had also accidentally killed someone and also didn’t have anyone to talk to. That snowballed and eventually, I created the website accidentalimpacts.org. Now I speak to the media pretty regularly. I’m actually giving a TEDx talk next week at UCLA. 

It’s still true that there’s a remarkable lack of resources for people that have accidentally killed someone. And it’s really not that uncommon, unfortunately. I estimate that about 20,000 people in the United States alone accidentally kill someone each year. So there are a lot of people struggling with the grief and pain and trauma of having gone through this. But there isn’t any protocol, there aren’t any support groups, there are no research articles except for what I do. Maybe the idea that any of us could do this is so scary that people don’t want to talk about it. But I’ve become an advocate, saying these are good people who had terrible luck or made a terrible mistake, and they need support.  

This concludes part one of our interview with Maryann Gray. Please come back next week to learn more about how she is working to help others who have accidentally caused a death.