What started as a routine drive home from a baseball game quickly turned into a life-altering moment for Shannon Ouimet, a mother of two from Littleton, Colorado. On the evening of June 22, Shannon and her 7-year-old son Grayson were heading home from Arvada when their vehicle was struck head-on by a wrong-way driver on Highway 285 near Kipling.
“I looked up, and there was just a truck coming straight at me,” Ouimet recalled from her hospital bed at St. Anthony’s Medical Campus in Lakewood. “Before I could even react, it was just, ‘Bam.’”
The collision left Shannon with serious injuries, including a fractured knee and a broken vertebra in her lower back. She has already undergone surgery and faces a long road to recovery. Despite her own injuries, Shannon’s first instinct was to rescue her son from the wreckage.
“I fought through the pain to get him out of the car,” she said. Fortunately, her quick thinking and a decision made just moments earlier may have saved Grayson’s life. With the back seatbelt not functioning properly, she had placed him in the front passenger seat where the seatbelt held him securely during the impact.
Lakewood police responded to several 911 calls about a large black truck traveling the wrong way on the highway. The driver, identified as Ayodeji Akanni Fadeyi, was arrested at the scene. Authorities say he faces multiple charges, including vehicular assault, reckless driving, careless driving causing injury, and driving under the influence.
For Shannon, the crash is especially painful given her personal journey. “It’s kind of a trigger for me because I’m a recovering alcoholic,” she explained. “To know that I changed my life for the better, and then I get hit by a drunk driver—it’s just heartbreaking.”
Her frustration intensified when she learned that the suspect had been released on bond. “How do I know he’s not going to get behind the wheel again and maybe kill someone?” she questioned.
Community Support Provides a Ray of Hope
Despite the trauma, Shannon is finding strength in the support of friends, family, and community members. A crowdfunding campaign has been launched to help cover her medical expenses and support her family while she is unable to work.
“I’m a hairstylist, so I’ll be out of work for a really long time,” she said. “I have two beautiful kids to care for, so it’s a blessing not to have to worry about expenses while I heal.”
As she recovers, Shannon is using her voice to advocate for greater awareness around drunk and reckless driving. She emphasizes the devastating impact such decisions can have on innocent lives.
“Just don’t drink and drive. Don’t be selfish,” she urged. “It’s always the drunk driver who walks away without a scratch—he could have killed me and my son that day.”
Shannon’s case is not isolated. In recent months, the Denver metro area has seen a troubling rise in wrong-way driving incidents. Her story adds to a growing call for tougher enforcement, better infrastructure, and increased public education to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
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