A Florence teen graduated from West Florence High School Thursday night after attending only three days due to a scary wreck. The wreck occurred on National Cemetery Road in Florence on August 25.
Angel Coleman was on her way to get dinner when her jeep flipped over six times stopping at a field. The 17-year-old climbed out of the sun roof and was taken to the hospital due to severe pain in her shoulder.
“That phone call started just a list of things her senior year that she was going to have to overcome, and achieve and conquer,” said Renee Graham, Coleman’s Mother.
X-rays showed Coleman had suffered permanent damage to her collar bone and needed surgery. She had a steel plate and six screws inserted. Doctors told her she wouldn’t be able to return to school.
According to Coleman, she started receiving school lessons at home and was taking tons of pain medicine that she didn’t really need.
“As a mother, I kind of knew that she was taking a little more than she should have, even though I was controlling her medication. She was getting it from somewhere else, but it’s not something a mother wants to come to realize,” Graham said.
Coleman’s family decided to take her to a detox facility early in the year.
“When I got off the pain medicine, my body was still trying to tell me that I was in pain when I really wasn’t, so I was still taking them and still taking them,” Coleman said. “I just got so used to having that high.”
After leaving the facility, she managed to stop taking pain pills. She also completed all her classes with straight A’s and was able to graduate with her classmates.
“I was nervous because I hadn’t seen any of my graduating class at all. When I walked in, everyone was like,’ where’d you come from?’ because they all thought I had dropped out,” she said.
The West Florence grad starts college this month and hopes to one day become a social worker.