Book Nook: The Long Blink - The True Story of Trauma, Forgiveness, and One Man's Fight for Safer Roads

Ed Slattery is all of us, the everyman. Ordinary. It is the extraordinary that forced him to pivot in order to protect what was left of his family while using grief, the complex evasiveness of forgiveness and generosity, to fuel his fight to change an industry he blames. Crashes involving large commercial trucks kill thousands of people a year in this country. To be fair, not all crashes are the fault of truckers, but there are real issues of driver fatigue and the pressure created in a “pay by the mile” scheme many companies employ. Since the Slattery’s crash in 2010, the fatalities from large trucks on American roadways have surged, and claim more than 4,000 lives each and every year.

Still, at every turn, politicians meet Ed Slattery, a man who has made it his life’s purpose to make our roads safer through common sense regulations. Ed Slattery channeled his grief and filled those spaces by weaving an incredible tapestry to honor his wife, Susan.

Ed Slattery’s story culminates in the narrative nonfiction, The Long Blink, The True Story of Trauma, Forgiveness and One Man’s Fight for Safer Roads. Written by two-time Emmy award-winning investigative journalist Brian Kuebler, Ed Slattery’s struggle is intimate and powerful and about finding purpose in becoming a champion for the disabled and attempting forgiveness in a sobering and emotionally explosive confrontation with the driver, who fell asleep and caused the crash.

I had a chance to do an interview to learn more.

Why did you write this book?

As a journalist, I followed this family’s story for a couple of years. IN that time I watched this father evolve from victim to advocate and finally into a champion for his disabled son. I was in awe of how one man could transform his trauma into a force to do good. So when Ed asked me to write the book, I agreed because I believed this was an incredibly important story to tell about not only a danger we all see on our roads every day, but how a family can survive trauma and find purpose and forgiveness in it.

 

How can parents of children with disabilities become stronger advocates?

In Ed’s case, he leaned into the new reality he was dealt. He saw the limitations of his son’s condition and worked to remove as many of those hurdles as possible. From designing a house built around the wheelchair to starting nonprofits to help the disabled, Ed is committed to helping not only his son, but other with disabilities to live as normal a life as possible.

 

What about issues like safer roads - how can families push to reduce the impact of truck-related accidents?

Call you representatives. In Ed’s case he got involved and currently lobbies for safer regulations in the trucking industry on Capitol Hill. He has relationships with many national lawmakers and tells them his story in order to help foster change. There is a growing number of families becoming victims of large truck crashes in the US, 30 percent more than when Ed’s wife was killed. Being involved helps raise awareness.

 

Why is forgiveness so important?

Without forgiveness, you can get stuck inside trauma. For Ed, it was important to find purpose and forgiveness in this tragedy…if only to honor his wife and do right by his disabled son. To forgive allows a person to use all that energy and emotion of tragedy and direct it toward a more fulfilling purpose.