A year and a half ago, David Platillero’s life was about to change forever.
As he was riding back on his bike from the Blackbird Academy music school in Tennessee, he got into a horrible accident that blew him 10 feet into the air and sent him a hundred feet away onto the pavement. A driver had run a red light and hit the young man, who was only 24 years old.
David does not remember anything from the accident and could only remember the moment he woke up in the hospital.
As he woke up, he saw his legs had been propped up and his arm was in a splint. “The arm is the last of his concerns,” an orthopedic surgeon told David’s father, John, over the phone. “He has a severe spinal cord injury.”
His parents had driven over 100 miles from Knoxville to Nashville after the hospital had called them about the accident. As they stayed by his side, the doctors were preparing them for the worst.
When David woke up, he spent 10 days in his hospital bed thinking about what happened.
“It’s like the worst call you could possibly get,” David told CBS News. “They told me I was never going to walk again. I cried every day.
“Who would want to marry someone — who would want to be with someone like me who’s dependent on people? It was sad.”
But David had another concern: Who was the driver who had hit him?
He was worried about the driver and kept asking everyone about her. He felt really bad for her and was hoping he could find her to offer her his forgiveness.
“From what I was told, she really distraught over the whole thing. She had been crying. I didn’t want her life to be ruined because of this.”
It took David five months to find out who the driver was.
One day, out of the blue, he received a text from the 23-year old Freya Markowski. She wrote:
“Dear David…I lost my soul after the accident. I want you to know not a day goes by without me crying for your pain.”
David responded with a video of himself during physical therapy, and after that, the pair started to keep in touch. He would talk to her about his progress in physical therapy, and she would talk to him about her struggles with addiction and bipolar disorder. According to the Tennessean, although she hadn’t been using drugs on the day of the accident, she had forgotten to take her medication for her bipolar disorder.
Six months after the accident, Freya attended a hearing, where she faced charges of failure to yield leading to serious injury. David’s father was at the hearing, as well.
David had told his father he did not want to press charges.
“We didn’t think prison was going to be good for someone who has already had so many things happen.”
This was a surprise for Freya.
She told the Tennessean:
“I thought I was going to jail that day. Instead, this angel of a man shows up with open arms. David’s dad gave me a really big hug … How is that possible? The dad of the guy who I paralyzed?”
Almost a year after the accident happened, David and Freya decided to meet.
When David stepped out of the car in crutches instead of a wheelchair, Freya couldn’t hold in her tears.
“She thought I was going to come in a wheelchair,” David told CBS News. “We hugged for maybe 30 seconds, without saying a word.”
“I forgive you,” David told Freya. He had been waiting for almost a year to tell her that.
Since their encounter, they have continued to stay in touch.
Although David is slowly regaining movement in his legs and can walk with crutches, he still doesn’t have bladder or bowel function.
“Everything below the waist isn’t gone, but I don’t think it ever will be the same,” he said.
“I’m still getting stronger, working out every day. I’m thankful for the things I have.”
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
