Most college students spend the weekend before finals students, especially if they’re in honors and trying to keep their GPA up. Meghan Quaglino was no different, except for the fact that she was also working two jobs at the time. She was a junior at the Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern and was trying to maintain her 3.9 GPA. Meghan had spent Friday, December 3, finishing up attending class for the week and grabbing lunch with her roommate before starting on her study guides and papers before heading to her bartending shift that night at a bar about 10 minutes outside of Natchitoches. The shift went great, and she said goodbye to her coworkers and headed home around 2:30 AM on Saturday, December 4. Little did she know, that drive home would change her life completely and permanently derail her academic career. 

As she was driving home that night, Meghan was in a head-on collision with a drunk driver who was completely in her lane. The police report shows that she tried to swerve away, only to be spun out into the ditch on the other side of the road. When the EMTs arrived on scene, they approached her car not expecting to find anyone alive in it. She was cut from the vehicle with the jaws of life and rushed to Natchitoches Regional, where they quickly realized that her injuries needed to be treated at a more advanced trauma unit. Meghan was stabilized, the major wound on her face was stitched up, and she was transferred to Rapides Regional Medical Center, where she had surgery to insert metal plates and rods into her knee, her foot, and her hand. She also had a broken shoulder that they did not operate on. 

Meghan lost several things in this accident. Many of her schoolbooks were in her car, she was only able to save one. She had to get a new phone, as hers was shattered and covered in blood. The iPad that she uses for notes and assignments for her classes was luckily undamaged, but the Apple Pencil she took notes with was unsalvageable. Her Nintendo Switch was in the glovebox and unable to be recovered. She’ll be unable to work for several months but still have to pay rent for her apartment. She’s still going to have to buy books for the upcoming semester. 

Your donation will go directly towards making sure that Meghan keeps her apartment during her recovery and making sure that Meghan continues to have academic success. She’s trying to focus on her recovery while attempting to makeup her finals that she missed due to the accident. As of right now, she’s still in the hospital with an uncertain discharge date. Help her bring her life back to normal and make sure this drunk driver has as little impact on her life as possible.