Voices of Resilience: How Two Men Transformed Trauma Into Missions of Education
- Hermes Falcon
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
By Angely Peña-Agramonte
March 30, 2025
Youthcast Media Group®
Fletcher Cleaves and Brad Hughes have never met, yet they are linked by one eerily similar tragedy.
They are wheelchair-bound survivors of one of the biggest problems on America’s roads today: distracted driving. They are also now proud road safety advocates.
A car crash left Cleaves paralyzed at 18, while both of Hughes’ legs had to be amputated at the knee when a distracted driver lost control of his pickup truck and hit Hughes while he was assisting a motorist.
From these traumatic events, Cleaves and Hughes have forged new paths, not as victims, but as advocates determined to prevent as many people as possible from experiencing the dangers that changed their lives.
Adding to their urgency, they say, is the fact that over 3,300 people die in the U.S. each year as a result of distracted driving.
“When I talk to students, I emphasize that everything can change in just three seconds. One moment of inattention, one moment of not following the law, can change someone’s life forever,” said Hughes.
That morning he went from being “six-foot-4” to a man who is now “four-foot-6 and in a wheelchair,” he said.
When speaking to groups, Cleaves also cautions about texting while driving.
"The human brain cannot do two cognitive skills effectively at the same time," Cleaves explained. "Even if you think you can text and drive flawlessly, your driving is still impacted.”
The National Safety Council estimates that distracted driving causes about 1.6 million crashes each year in the United States, accounting for approximately 26% of the nation’s car crashes. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nine people in the U.S. die each day in crashes reportedly involving a distracted driver.
In many ways, the choice to use their trauma as a teachable moment is itself a risk for survivors such as Cleaves and Hughes.
“An individual's ability to find meaning in their trauma will vary from individual to individual and from trauma experience to trauma experience,’’ said Cassie Campbell, a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in trauma and grief treatment. For some, repeatedly sharing the details of a traumatic event can be harmful. Others, though, may experience growth, positive transformation, or “have a new appreciation for parts of their life,” said Campbell.
Cleaves and Hughes found their encounters with distracted driving ultimately opened doors to unexpected opportunities.
Cleaves’ future as a college football star was abruptly cut short when a distracted driver crashed into his car, leaving him paralyzed. Despite the physical toll of the crash, Cleaves began sharing his story at local schools and events, warning against the dangers of distracted driving.
“My why is that a lot of people have sacrificed so much for me to be where I am today," Cleaves explained. "My parents, my friends - they all made so many sacrifices to support me, and I didn't want to give up, not for myself, but for them."
Surviving the crash has made Hughes more passionate about road safety advocacy. “I can't let the loss of both my legs define who I really am and who I am as a person who is going to stand tall, no matter if I have legs or not,” Hughes said.
His choice to share his story has sparked his desire to contribute to conversations about road safety. “You were seeing all of the tragedies behind what was going on with these individuals, but you weren't seeing anything positive coming out of it. So for that, I started thinking to myself, ‘What can I do to make this a positive influence on people?’ ”
At the time of the crash, Hughes worked for a private security firm. He has since become a spokesman for Virginia’s “Move Over” law, which requires drivers to slow down and change lanes when approaching an emergency vehicle or roadside worker.
Much of his resolve, he said, grew out of the community support that surrounded him. “I remember when I came home and my community came over (and) at no charge, made my bathroom bigger, added a ramp to the back of my house, paved my driveway, and bought my first adapted vehicle. That showed me just how much my community cared,” Hughes said.
Hughes’ daughter, Breonna, described in a personal essay how her father’s loss changed her life. “My family’s life has been changed forever and I never want to be the cause of something like this to another family,’’ she wrote. “This is why I promise to never text and drive.”
Similarly buoyed by family, Cleaves learned to focus on the positive aspects of his recovery instead of the traumatic details.
“My parents sacrificed a lot for me to go back to school, my friends sacrificed with me having a disability and picking me up and dropping me off and things of that nature,” Cleaves said.
For Cleaves, family support became a source of strength and a powerful motivator.
“When I saw my support system sacrifice for me to just be ‘normal’ or be ‘part of society,’ I didn't want to give up, not necessarily for myself, but for them,” he said.
He regularly tells audiences, particularly youth: "Don't let what you're going through today dictate how successful you can be tomorrow. Leave the past in the past. Every day is a new opportunity to wake up and be better than you were yesterday."
He pairs his focus on the positive with hard and irrefutable facts too. He never misses an opportunity to point out that texting and driving is six times more deadly than drunk driving, yet it isn't treated with the same level of seriousness. In a 2023 TED Talk, he cautioned that “driving is the most dangerous thing that you will do daily.’’
Campbell, a social worker, commends the courage of both Cleaves and Hughes. However, she cautions others who have experienced such trauma to only take on such a role after first going through therapy, and even then, with realistic expectations.
“Unfortunately, using trauma as a platform or helping others with similar stories might not lead to healing at all and can potentially retraumatize the individual,’’ she said.
Trauma is an individual journey that no two people emerge from the same, Campbell said.
“For some survivors, advocacy potentially opens the door to flashbacks, unwanted somatic experiences, dissociation, retraumatization, emotional overwhelm and distress, or other trauma responses as a result of sharing their story or attempting to help another individual with a similar trauma.’’
Hughes insists that the rewards of sharing his story have been worthwhile, even healing. He encourages others experiencing trauma and tragedy to not give up. “We all deal with different types of tragedies,” he said.
“Just continue the fight, just like I do.”
Angely Pena-Agramonte is an intern with Youthcast Media Group in her junior year at the University of Miami studying journalism and international relations. Daisy Garriga, a freshman at Central Connecticut State University and YMG alum, contributed to this story.
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