Teen adjusts to life after crash

Judy Odierna

Thursday, Dec. 12, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

Bella Luna Restaurant is hosting a benefit dinner for Ashley Biersach at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the restaurant at 7905 West Sahara Ave., Suite 103. A silent auction featuring items such as a time-share condominium in Baja California , show tickets, antiques and more will take place prior to the event. BellaLuna patrons can also bid on the items at the restaurant in the days before the event.

Tickets are $125 per person and can be purchased by calling 227-7900. Checks are payable to Biersach's mother, Cindy Aaron. A special account has also been established at Nevada State Bank, account No. 0011321627.

Ashley Biersach doesn't go to parties anymore. She's too busy going to doctors' offices.

The 17-year-old has a doctor for her back, one for her pelvis, another for her leg, a doctor who handles her medicine, a plastic surgeon and a psychologist.

A little more than seven months ago, however, Biersach "was a typical teen, partying and having fun," she said.

"I had the typical problems everyone had," she said, problems on the level of fretting over whether she could make the cheerleading squad.

But that was before a May 9 traffic crash cost her part of her right leg, killed her two best friends and prompted local high schools to prohibit students from driving off campus during lunch periods.

That crash has become a high-profile example for some elected officials who hope to pass a tougher graduated licensing program during the upcoming legislative session in February, but it's not the only example. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers. Eight other teens have died in fatal crashes this year in Las Vegas.

In September 16-year-old Ryan Sneed was killed when he drove his carload of teens into the path of a tractor-trailer about a mile away from Centennial High School. Sneed had obtained his driver's license nine days before the crash, according to police.

The driver of the car in the May 9 crash, Ashley Troester, was also 16. Troester didn't have a driver's license, but she was behind the wheel of a 1976 Ford Thunderbird with Biersach and three other teenage girls as passengers.

They were speeding back to Las Vegas High School after a lunch at Burger King when Troester lost control of the car and skidded more than 200 feet into a light pole on the Sahara Avenue median near Sloan Avenue.

The impact sheared the car in half and instantly killed 17-year-old Natasha Keeter. Troester died a few days later despite having been the only one in the car who had been wearing a seat belt.

Biersach had been friends with Troester and Keeter since they were in fifth grade together.

"Losing my friends was the hardest," Biersach said. "Everyone knew us as 'The Three.' "

Seven months after the accident, Biersach doesn't sleep much, and when she does she has nightmares in which she talks to her dead friends in the crashed car.

These days, Biersach said, friends are scarce.

Her boyfriend, her 9-year-old sister, and her mother Cindy Aaron are her only confidants.

She hasn't been back to Las Vegas High School. She tried to go to homecoming last month and left after an hour.

"Everyone I knew that was there didn't say a word to me," she said through tears. "Not one person comes around anymore."

She is supposed to start a home-bound education program soon but has to have another surgery first.

"I started walking (with a prosthetic leg) four months after the accident, and they said it would take two years," she said. "But no one told me it was too soon" to walk extensively on the prosthetic.

"Now I have to have surgery to reconstruct my whole back."

Biersach said it's hard for her to smile much anymore, but among the things that make her happy are the letters she receives from the students who tell her they were affected by one of her speeches about the dangers of reckless driving.

"I tell them about the accident because it gives them a reality check," she said. "I do it because it may save a life, too."

In 2001 there were 18 traffic deaths and 11 serious injuries in traffic accidents involving 16- and 17-year-olds. Througout Nevada last year, drivers ages 16 to 20 were responsible for 40 fatal crashes in Nevada in 2001.

Teen drivers were also responsible for 4,257 injuries and 8,584 property damage crashes last year, authorities said. Nationwide, more than 5,600 teenagers died in motor vehicle accidents in 2000.

Because hers is one of the thousands of lives forever changed by a teen car crash, Biersach is one of the supporters of newly elected state Sen. Barbara Cegavske's proposal to toughen the graduated driver's license law. Cegavske wants to increase the amount of supervised time a teen must spend behind the wheel before he or she can get full driving privileges.

Jeff Payne, the founder of Driver's Edge, the outreach program that Biersach works with, said the teen's volunteer work has had an impact.

"She has been awesome since the first day I met her," he said. "I think she has the opportunity to do a lot of great things. It is amazing the effect she has over the teens. The most moving thing is seeing Ashley."

Susan Chavez of Bella Luna, a restaurant that will hold a fund-raiser for Biersach on Saturday called her "just an amazing girl."

"She's done a lot for the community being in the situation she is in," Chavez said.

And as they also continue to recover from their injuries, two of Biersach's fellow survivors from the May 9 accident have participated in efforts to prevent teen crashes as well. Kiley Quinn, 15, recently had surgery to remove the screws from her femur. She had a rod inserted into the bone after the crash and pins had to be drilled into her hip.

She has been in a home schooling program, but is supposed to return to Las Vegas High School at the end of January. Like Biersach, Quinn says she suffers from nightmares, sees a psychiatrist, and has been deserted by many of her former friends.

"The hardest thing is realizing life goes on," Quinn said.

For 16-year-old Aleisa Valdez, the least severely injured of the three survivors, life has somewhat returned to normal.

Valdez suffered injuries similar to Quinn's. Valdez's femur was broken and also required the insertion of a rod. Doctors also attached a plate to her hip to support the rod.

Her father, Rob Valdez, said his daughter's leg healed so well that doctors say when she turns 21 they should be able to remove all of the hardware.

Valdez walks with a slight limp, but that's not all that has changed.

"My first day back at school I expected them to come into class," Valdez said of her lost friends. "It's hard realizing they are not going to be there. A lot is different now. (Quinn) and I used to be really good friends but now you can't really get us in the same room. We are just used to seeing each other the way we were. It made things hard."

Valdez also gets a lot of flak from her peers. They blame the survivors of the wreck for the closed campus policy, she said.

The Clark County School District initiated closed-campus lunch hours after the crash. It was a policy that Assistant Regional Superintendent Paul Garbiso said was going to happen anyway but was expedited because of the accident.

"A majority (of the campuses) were already closed," said Garbiso, who heads the district's eastern region that includes Las Vegas High. "It's one of the smartest things we've done. We get the occasional complaint or two, but you are going to get that no matter what you do."

Valdez said having closed lunches has been tough on students. There are more fights and it is too crowded, she said.

Closed campus lunch hours have bolstered afternoon attendance, Garbiso agreed, but he said there has been no increase in teen brawls.

But Valdez says kids are still getting into crashes on the way to school and in the afternoon on the way home.

"Closed campus doesn't help," she said. "It's the way people drive that's the problem."

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