Promise McCree woke up at Methodist Dallas Medical Center after a near-fatal hit and run with her body held together by pins, plates, and nearly 60 screws.
“My pelvis was split in half,” the 24-year-old poet recalls. “They told my family they didn’t know if I’d wake up.”
When she was rear-ended on a Dallas interstate, Promise stepped out of her vehicle and was hit by two other cars. Her injuries were so severe that doctors weren’t sure she would survive.
Today, after eight surgeries and countless hours of physical therapy, she is walking, working, and writing poetry again.
“I’m still the same girl with an infectious aura … and a smile worth capturing,” Promise says in a poem written during her recovery. “This smile, it’s never going to go away.”
That’s a promise to live by, considering the pain that Promise has endured.
LIFE-CHANGING CRASH
On Labor Day in 2023, Promise left her cousin’s home, planning to go shopping with her mom. She was two exits from her mother’s house when a driver clipped her car, sending it into a barrier on Interstate 30 in downtown Dallas.
“I’m a short woman, so I sit close to the steering wheel,” she remembers. “Everything came toward me.”
Dazed but conscious, Promise stepped out of her car and was struck by a second car. That driver stopped to help, but moments later, an SUV ran over the lower half of her body. The driver of the SUV did not stop.
“I want to know why they didn’t stop,” says Promise, who has a message for that hit-and-run driver: “Whoever you are, I forgive you.”
Promise’s sorority sister Stephanie, among others, helped lift her spirits during her long hospital stay.
50% CHANCE OF SURVIVAL
Paramedics rushed Promise to Methodist Dallas, where Niladri Basu, MD, an orthopedic surgeon on the medical staff, and other surgeons began operating shortly after her arrival.
“I saw a young lady on a stretcher in basically a pool of blood from her pelvis,” Dr. Basu says. “Her blood pressure was dropping, and we had to move quickly to save her life.”
Promise’s injuries were devastating: Her pelvic bone was split in half, and her left forearm and shinbone were broken in multiple places.
“Basically, something caught her leg and pulled her whole pelvis off her body on both sides,” Dr. Basu explains. “The mortality rate with an open pelvic fracture like that is close to 50%.”
As the accident and its aftermath unfolded, Promise’s mother, LaJuana McCree, called her daughter’s cellphone. She still remembers an ICU nurse answering.
“I didn’t have time to cry,” she says, through tears. “I just needed to know she was alive. From that moment on, I had to be strong for her.”
During her recovery, Promise counted on support from friends and family, including her sister Cherish.
‘STARTING FROM SCRATCH’
When Promise woke up a week after the crash, she couldn’t feel anything below her belly button. A neck brace limited her movements, and two pins held her pelvis together.
“It was like a movie scene,” she says. “The beeping noises, the IV, the neck brace, my sister telling me not to move. That’s when it hit me, I couldn’t feel parts of my body.”
Dr. Basu, along with other doctors, performed eight surgeries to meticulously rebuild her pelvis, arm, and leg with titanium plates and screws. Her world shrank to her hospital room, where she relearned everything: how to sit up, steady her neck, grip a pen, and even write her name.
“It felt like starting from scratch,” she says. “I didn’t even know who I was before. I felt like a newborn baby.”
However, Promise was surrounded by support around the clock.
“I didn’t want to be alone. My mom and dad, grandma, and sisters made sure someone was with me at all times,” she says.
Promise returned to Methodist Dallas after her recovery to thank the team that treated her.
FINDING THE WILL TO RECOVER
She also found encouragement from the Methodist Dallas staff, who cheered her on while she built a bond with Dr. Basu.
“I love Dr. Basu,” Promise says, with a smile on her face. “He was firm and frank with me, but he was always sensitive to the situation; he considered my feelings and gave me the option of how to receive it.”
That trust became the foundation of her recovery, helping her face each painful milestone with courage.
“Amazingly, she can walk into my office two years later after such life-threatening injuries,” Dr. Basu says. “Promise was strong-willed from the start.”
For her family, those long days in the hospital were a blur of worry and gratitude, each act of kindness etching itself into their memories.
“The staff became our family,” her mother says. “From the surgeons to the nurses to even the people who cleaned her room, they all gave us hope on the hardest days. I’ll never forget how much love they showed my daughter.”
Now a published author, Promise has drawn on her experience to keep writing poetry.
REDISCOVERING HER VOICE
Words are a way of life for Promise. With her throat too painful to speak, she wrote poetry.
“Some of my deepest poems came during that time,” she says. “I’m not glad the accident happened, but it added layers and depth to my writing I never had before.”
Her milestones since then tell their own story: She earned her master’s degree from Grambling State University, regained her ability to walk, and now mentors young people through a North Texas nonprofit.
The crash left lasting changes. She still lives with pain, especially when the weather turns cold, but she refuses to let it define her. Physical and occupational therapy will be lifelong needs. The track star can’t run like she once did, but she dreams of the day she might.
Her advice for others facing similar challenges: “Give yourself as much grace as you can. It’s normal to lose hope. Just don’t stay there too long. Believe in God, and believe in yourself.”
Promise’s plans are as bold as her name. She hopes to become a professor, get married, and raise a family.
“I want to leave a legacy,” she says. “Something monumental. Something worth remembering.”
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