Car-crash victim forgives man responsible

April 16, 2005, started out like any Saturday for Dowling College freshman Kelly Scherz.

The 19-year-old psychology student dyed her hair, got a pedicure and went to a lacrosse game. The last thing she recalls that night is driving her friend, another Dowling freshman, home from the game.

Then everything went black.

In an instant, a crash in the westbound lanes of the Long Island Expressway sent a Ford Expedition careening across the median into the lanes where Scherz was driving, police said.

"My passenger heard me say, 'Oh, my God,' and she looked up and just saw a car coming at us," said Scherz, now 25, of Patchogue. The crash, which landed her in a coma for nearly a week, was a pivotal moment for Scherz, she said.

"You realize that life is too short and it could end in the blink of an eye," she said.

Scherz spent a month in hospitals recovering from three broken vertebrae and a brain injury. She had to relearn how to walk, laugh and cry, said her mother, Gail Scherz, 53.

It took months of physical and occupational therapy, but "little by little, she came back," her mother said.

Now, she still has trouble with focusing and memory, and also gets a pain in her neck when it rains, Kelly Scherz said.

She dropped out of college because of her injuries, she said, and got a medical assistant certificate. "I think it changed my life for the better," she said. "I'm happier doing what I'm doing now."

Scherz went to the sentencing for the man charged with driving drunk and causing the crash -- Henry Schaeffer, now 42, of Bellport -- to forgive him. He was sentenced to 6 months in jail after pleading guilty to drunken driving and vehicular assault.

"It takes a lot more out of you to hold a grudge," she said. "Everyone makes mistakes."