Teresa Moore typically took Highway 59 home to Atlanta, Texas, from her job teaching the visually impaired. On a cloudy day in November of 2011, however, her 45-minute commute was far more challenging.
As Moore was driving, she noticed a pickup truck on a little rural access road and, of course, expected the driver would heed the stop sign. He didn’t. Instead, the driver pulled out in front of her and Moore, unable to avoid a collision, hit the passenger side of the truck.
“I don’t remember the impact,” Moore says. “It must have knocked me out for a few seconds. I remember my car spinning and an 18-wheeler zooming by.”
Within seconds of her vehicle coming to a stop, she heard a voice through her car speakers saying OnStar detected her airbags had deployed and asking if she was OK. It was an Emergency-Certified OnStar Advisor.
“They said they already had an ambulance on the way and they would stay with me until help arrived,” Moore says. She also remembers reaching for her phone, calling her husband, Randy, and saying “bad wreck” before handing the phone to a stranger who had appeared by her side.
“The ambulance arrived in about six or seven minutes,” she says.
Good thing, too. Moore suffered compound fractures above her right ankle and the bone below her knee was broken in 15 pieces. She also suffered fractures in her sternum, both elbows and one wrist. Recovery required six surgeries, including bone grafts and rods, and more than three years of recovery time.
“I am good today,” says Moore, 60, who now walks five miles a day and is grateful for her husband’s support. “I am also so thankful that OnStar was there for me so quickly. I would have felt alone.”
Moore never imagined she would endure a crash like that, but since she and her husband live in a rural community, they had activated OnStar just in case.
“We have it in both vehicles,” she says. Her husband drives a 2012 Chevrolet Silverado and she now has a 2012 Chevrolet Traverse. “I’ve looked at other cars and thought, ‘No, they don’t have OnStar.’”
They regularly use Turn-by-Turn Navigation
“I feel like if something ever happened, if I broke down, OnStar would still be there,” says Moore. “It gives you more of a secure feeling.”
