On December 19, 1989, in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, MN, Nancy Winkelman, then 27 years of age, became another of the tens of thousands of victims of inadequate rear underride protection on trucks and trailers.

On her way home after work, Nancy encountered a semi-trailer stopped in the lane of traffic ahead of her without its emergency flashers illuminated. Although she applied her brakes attempting to stop, she could not quite stop in time and skidded into the rear of the trailer.

When Nancy’s car struck the rear of the trailer, the underride guard – which was supposed to keep her from smashing underneath - failed, buckled under and allowed her car to skid directly under the rear of the trailer so far that the bed of the trailer crashed through the driver’s compartment. As a result, most of Nancy’s lower jaw and portions of her tongue were amputated. She was within inches of being decapitated.

Although physicians began emergency surgery to reattach the jawbone and tissue later that same night, their reattachment efforts were not successful and Nancy was left with practically no lower jaw and only portions of her tongue.

Within three weeks, after her condition stabilized, Nancy’s doctors went to work again, this time taking a bone and tissue graft from her left forearm. Nancy’s doctors fashioned this bone and tissue into a replacement lower jaw which they then attached to the remaining lower jaw stubs. That surgery has been followed over the last seven years by surgery after surgery. To date, Nancy has endured 29 surgeries. More surgeries are scheduled.

Not surprisingly, Nancy’s injuries and the repeated medical procedures have prevented her from returning to her job as secretary. She has finally been able to return to full-time work, but her injuries have forced her to be assigned to different duties.

The financial losses associated with Nancy’s injuries and recovery have been significant. Her medical bills and lost wages have so far have risen to well over a million dollars.

Nancy was shocked to learn that she was just one of tens of thousands of Americans injured or killed in rear impact crashes with trucks in the 1980’s. She was even more shocked to find that this suffering could have been prevented if the federal government and truck and trailer manufacturers had not delayed to protect the motoring public by providing the safest possible "rear impact guards" on trucks.

While more medical work and surgeries are ahead, the final result of all these efforts, including procedures to repair Nancy’s tongue, remain unknown. Nancy hopes for the day when she will be able to eat normally, and to converse freely and be easily understood. Her parents and siblings have been a source of great support to her. She remains committed to making the best out of her difficult predicament.

Nancy hopes that her involvement in the "Stop the Roving Guillotines" efforts will help wake up the American public and government to the need to finally and quickly remove this threat to life and limb.