“Everything comes up again, what did I earn this from?” Peter was thirteen years old when he lost both his parents in a traffic accident caused by a drunk motorist. He and his younger brother were seriously injured. The trauma from his youth drew his life for decades. And just now that Peter finally seems to have his life in order, fate strikes. Last week he became involved in a serious accident and again the other driver turned out to be under the influence of alcohol.
As a miracle, Peter Ooms (60) was ‘only’ slightly injured this time. But the mental blow threw deafening days later. “I am glad I survived, but I am still in shock. Have you ever heard of a tunnel with a bright white light at the end? I really saw that tunnel,” says the Bosschenaar emotionally.
“It became black before my eyes.”
Peter drives that day in the company car of his work on a quiet country road, just over the provincial border in Gelderland. Suddenly a delivery van shoots onto the road from a yard. “He was suddenly out of nowhere, I couldn’t go any way. It became black before my eyes. In a flash I saw myself sitting again in the backseat with my parents, I was so scared. I meanwhile felt that my mother was pulling the wheel with it. As if she wanted to say that I had to survive. I waited afterwards until the blow was over.” “
Both the company car and the delivery van are badly damaged. Although the Airbag Peter has protected from serious injury, he has left a serious whiplash to the crash. Shortly after the accident it becomes clear that the driver of the delivery van had drunk too much. Official report has been drawn up against him.
Peter grew up in Nieuw-Vossemeer. The drama that happened to his family is engraved in the memory with many fellow villagers. At the age of 13, his carefree youth is cruelly disturbed by the traffic accident with his parents. Despite good intentions from family and care providers, life for Peter is a constant struggle with incorrect choices. The grief and the pain from his youth were too great.
“I thought: at the age of fifty, I cut it off. I was a mental wreck and I didn’t know how to live on,” he previously told Omroep Brabant. Yet he manages to pick up again at a later age. Not in the last place through the guidance of his dedicated personal coach. “He saved my life,” said Peter.
“What has been in the past I don’t want, never again.”
It even went so well that Peter had found the energy again to make an effort for a plaque at the flour mill in his birthplace. In the mill, which was in possession of the Ooms family for four generations, his grandfather and grandmother with three of their children died during the 1953 flood disaster. Peter managed to put an information board about this drama with the help of the municipality.
“That has meant so much to me, I finally felt good again. Because of the accident I am back. It is really not going well with me now. I hope it is temporary. What has been in the past I don’t want, never again. I want to continue for myself and for my parents who watch me.”
