SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – In recognition of National Trauma Survivors Day, a young woman from Palmer is sharing her story, after being involved in a roll-over car accident last year.

On this trauma survivors day, Alicenne Cote is grateful to be alive and healing, letting other trauma survivors know they’re not alone. Cote tells 22News, “My friend and I were going back to my house and we tried to avoid another car, we ended up hitting a tree stump which caused us to go airborne and we flipped over multiple times, and within those flips I somewhere got ejected out the back window,” Cote says, “And I was obviously out of the car, so I knew something was wrong I just didn’t know exactly what yet.”

Alicene Cote would later discover the extent of her injuries, including heavy damage to her scalp due to glass shards. Dr. Edward Kelly, Chief, Division of Trauma Surgery at Baystate Health stating, “In addition, there was a fracture to the clavicle, significant damage to the ear, where it was almost completely separated from its attachment to the head.”

Over a year later, Alicene is recovering, and had the opportunity to thank the person who helped to save her life. Kelly adding, “It’s why I come into work. We get the opportunity to see patients often on the very worst day of their life to do interventions that make a difference, that we can tell the difference right away.”

Baystate Health is the only level one trauma center in western Massachusetts, and seeing positive recovery stories like this makes the job worthwhile.

Kristina Grochowski, Trauma Program Director at Baystate telling 22News, “This is incredible, this is what we do. We work every day as a team with our surgeon teams and our residents and our nurses to really make sure our patients are getting what they need to get back to their previous life before the trauma.”

The trauma team at Baystate stresses the importance of trauma prevention, especially encouraging drivers to follow the rules of the road.