By Jeanne Vaughan, Business Community Liaison

Sarah Panzau with ODJCC students after her presentation

Sarah Panzau talks about her Journey

 On Friday, September 21, 2012, the students and staff at Old Dominion Job Corps had the opportunity to witness a young woman named Sarah Panzau telling the story of her life after experiencing a horrific automobile accident.  Her story made you cry, laugh, mad, sad and proved to be a real inspiration to all in attendance.

After a night of drinking in August 2003, the friends she had been drinking with allowed her to get into her car to drive home.  If only they had taken her keys, but they didn’t.  She was involved in a single car accident that injured her so severely that she was at first diagnosed as “clinically dead”.  Her blood alcohol level was almost 4 times the legal limit of .08.  It was .308.

Sarah survived and is a dynamic individual with a great message.  She wears workout clothes (shorts and a tank top) so her audience can see her scars and see that she no longer had a left arm.  Her injuries were many and her initial hospital stay was 77 days and that was just the beginning of her hospitalizations.  She has endured nerly 40 surgeries.

Prior to her accident she had distanced herself from her family and lived for the moment with her so-called friends.  Since her accident, those friends have not called or visited her, but her family was there from day one supporting her.  Sarah has told her story to over 90,000 teens and young adults.  Her message is to encourage those listening to make the right choices in life.  Her presentation holds listeners spellbound.

ODJCC students didn’t want her to leave.  Most of them wanted a picture taken with her.  They hugged her.  They thanked her and many wrote down her email address so they could stay in touch with her.  If we took a poll of students, I would almost gurantee they all would recommend she return to ODJCC annually so all the students who attend ODJCC would have the opportunity to hear about “Sarah’s Journey”.