Traumatic injuries like gunshots or car accidents happen in the blink of an eye.

But the healing that comes after can be a long journey.

For National Trauma Survivors, Day U of L showcased to the stories of 14 people who were treated at the regional trauma center.

Kentucky Edition met some of those survivors who were featured in a one day art exhibit on Wednesday.

Well, I was on my way home from work October 24th, 2023, and I had a seizure behind the wheel.

I went flying, crossed a field, then grabbed my car around a crowded tree, and then next thing I know, I'm waking up in the hospital.

Three weeks later, my mom's asking me if I knew exactly what happened to me.

No one plans to come to the hospital for a traumatic injury, so it's it's sudden and unexpected.

A lot of times we have other stressors going on in our life before this, too.

So you're just adding on to your stress and then you lose a lot of what you used to have.

Some of you are super independent person and then all of a sudden you have to have someone else feed you, but you have to have someone help get you dressed.

It's a huge adjustment.

So doing it is a way that you can gain some of that autonomy back.

You can maybe you can't do some of the things you used to do to cope, but you can still create.

Honestly, I'm pretty surprised what the project was about because I'm a big fan of Japanese and Japanese culture.

So the fact that this based off against 30 is like big for me.

So Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending things with gold.

So instead of disguising our drapes or trying to throw it away or replace it with something new, you're highlighting that damage as part of your journey and it's part of your life stories.

When you first walk in to the entrance, you see there's a full length mirror with a poem about sushi, and that mirror is broken into pieces and brought back together.

So you're looking at yourself and you're seeing yourself as see.

And then at each for each reviver, they have an art piece that they created where they're able to break pottery, actually, and then they can mosaic to represent wholeness and healing, and then their photo collages are kind of broken into pieces.

And that also highlights that theme.

And then there's an additional portrait of them that has the key sticky cracks and ends.

And ended up shattering just about the bones in my forearm, my femur, multiple phrase, multiple ribs, punctured, punctured lung and a sheer carotid artery.

They weren't even sure if I was going to be able to walk, talk or anything.

So since then I've been I've been able to get it back on my feet.

I'm talking a lot better than anybody ever expected, and I'm just working on getting the fine motor control back in my left hand.

Now I'm just really thankful for everything that you was able to do for me and how quickly they were able to get me back on my feet.

U of L's trauma center treats about 4500 trauma patients a year.