Victim details dangers of texting and driving

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- If you've ever been tempted to pick up your phone and send a text while driving, you should reconsider. A 21-year-old college student made that mistake. On Wednesday, he went home after spending six months in the hospital.

Chance Bothe recalls the last text he sent while driving on January 24.

"'This is dumb. If we keep doing this I'm going to wreck my truck, going to get in a car crash.' And right after that, I got in a car crash," he said.

His truck plunged into a ravine and landed in a creek. The engine ended up in his lap, the car's roof crumpled his forehead and shook his brain.

"The truck caught on fire. They dragged him out and then they sent him to Victoria. It was bad, real bad," his father, Bobby Bothe, said.

"I broke my sternum and my neck," Chance said. "Both my ankles were broken. My face was broken from my cheekbones all the way up."

"I was told he wouldn't live. I was told he'd be blind," Bobby said.

Chance was airlifted to a San Antonio hospital.

"I don't want no parent to ever go through that. That's too much for me," Bobby said.

Then he came to TIRR in Houston for his brain injury. Now after six long months of rehabilitation, Chance was going home.

"I've been looking forward to this day the whole time," he said.

"He is one of the lucky ones that we've seen dramatic recovery and he's gonna be able to live a full and a regular life so that's great; that's a miracle in that sense," said Dr. Jacob Joseph with the TIRR brain injury program.

He hopes to finish college, but his brain injury will make college harder. And he wants other drivers to know what can happen when you look away from the road to send a text.

"God saved my life somehow. I know I died like three times but God didn't keep me away from coming back here," Chance said. "I have a higher purpose in being here. And I think it's to tell everyone not to text message and drive."

The accident happened in his hometown of Ganado, Texas. Friends witnessed the accident and pulled him out of the wreckage just before it caught fire.

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