Hello, my name is Amanda McGraw. I am a single mother of 3. I am raising funds to pay my insurance up so that this total loss from my wreck is covered and funds to obtain another vehicle to continue to provide for my children.

Here is what has happened...

I had a hole in my front driver side tire, so I had to put the donut tire that came with the car on. Three days later, on Friday the 13th, I bought a replacement tire and took it with the wheel to a mechanic and had them dismount and remount the tire. The very next day, Saturday 02/14, I was driving my vehicle on I-24, traveling in the far left lane, maintaining about 70 mph. I was on my way, 2 hours away from home, to get a drum set for my son's birthday off layaway. His birthday is 02/18. I never made it that far. Out of the blue, the car did not start making any strange noises nor did it start to shake and rattle or anything like that to indicate the start of a problem. The front driver's side wheel came off of the car. I could not locate or recover the wheel. The car immediately pulled to the left. When it got to the grassy median, the dismembered parts under the wheel stuck into the ground and kept going forward at the maintained speed. This made it impossible to move my wheel and try to move the car back to the right-hand side of the road. Along the outside perimeter of the median were metal poles with thick wire twisted and braided together. The vehicle struck the first pole, damaging the angle of the pole and deploying all side airbags inside the vehicle. I had my foot on the brake trying to slow it down, but the pedal just went straight to the floor, failing to slow it at all. About every 2 seconds thereafter, it struck the next pole for what I would guess to be about 10-15 poles before the car came to a stop. Those poles were not damaged at all, but each one of them dug a deeper piece out of the driver's side of the car. Dismembered parts of the car came up through the floorboard, causing my legs to squish up towards my face, and the last pole that I hit came inside the vehicle, cutting open about a 5-inch hole in the left side of my jacket that I had on. The car immediately died, and no lights would even try to come back on.

After being stranded in another town 2 hours away, in the rain for 2 days, I was wet, dirty, and so hungry. One of my children's friend's parents bought me an Uber to get home. Now here I am stuck. No way to get to work or get my children to appointments.

I have been taking an Uber to and from work, but it's soaking up so much of my pay that I'm hardly coming up with anything to go towards what I need to pay.

I have insurance and I have gap insurance, but I got a little behind on the payments. I have 5 days, so until Friday, to pay $416. Then the total loss will be covered, and I will not owe anything else and will be able to start looking for another vehicle. I will not get any funds to help with a down payment or anything. If I don't get it paid within that time frame, it will be turned in as if I didn't have insurance, and I will owe what I still owed on the car, and I won't be able to get another vehicle.

Without a vehicle and a way to get to work, I'm going to lose everything I've worked to provide for my children. Please help me get back on my feet. Thank you.