THE world marks World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on Sunday, and for many people, that has a personal, painful meaning.

One survivor is pleading with drivers to consider the trauma families are left to endure after road fatalities.

Each time Shurnelle Sobra, 35, sees a road-traffic accident, she’s nauseated.

This paranoia started 14 years ago on October 7, when Sobra got into a maxi designated to take her to school at Vessigny Secondary School, La Brea.

She said the maxi tried to overtake a bus when at the same time a vehicle was coming from the other direction. The maxi unsuccessfully tried to pull back into its lane, but collided with the bus.

“I just remember being on the side of the road covered in mud. I couldn’t move any part of my body. People were trying to wash mud from my eyes.

“My family believed I had died, because they didn’t see me on the scene.

"All this time I was in and out of consciousness while being taken to the hospital.”

She spent five days in the ICU unit with a broken leg, a fractured collarbone, bruised lungs and cuts to her head from the impact. Then she was moved to another ward and her leg was put in traction to help it heal.

“My parents asked that they put a cast on it, but they said I needed to learn to walk with crutches.”

After a full month of physiotherapy, her leg broke again when she tried to walk for the first time.

“I stayed in the hospital for another month, and this time with the cast my mother had asked for in the first place.”

Doctors eventually discharged her two days before Christmas, in a wheelchair and still unable to walk. She told Sunday Newsday her road to recovery had started, but a nightmare she thought was over returned to haunt her family in 2009 and 2013.

Her aunt and uncle were involved in a fatal car accident on Christmas morning. Her uncle died of his injuries and her aunt slipped into a coma and died months later.

Then in 2013, her sister, two cousins and another friend were involved in an accident. The friend died in the crash.

Sobra struggled even more in her recovery journey. She returned to school in January the year after the accident, and started walking in July.

“Every time I tell my story, I have a different experience.

"I won’t say I get sad over it any more. It’s more like a level of gratitude and some reflection at every stage of how far I’ve come.”

She urges drivers not to drink and drive, and to be patient on the roads.

“The accidents with me and my aunt involved alcohol. While you might survive the accident, the other people involved might not survive. Think about what their family would have to go through.

“To this day I still have anxiety. The only thing that helped me was God.”

As Sobra continues her long recovery, another woman is just starting hers after a car killed her father in a hit-and-run accident in July.

Anthony Harris, 60, who was a freelance sports photographer with Guardian Media Ltd, was hit by a car while cycling around the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, on Ju