Hagerstown real estate agent working through new fears, awareness after alleged assault

Cynthia Sullivan says she looks at life differently since March 1, the day she feared for her life. After her car was rammed and demolished by a Ford F-350, police charged the alleged driver of the truck with assault.

Sullivan now lives with new fears, but also has a deeper appreciation for people close to her and empathy for those who are suffering.

"With a broken foot and the broken neck and I was walking on crutches and had a cast on my foot and everything, I just felt so diminished," she said recently as she sat for an interview in her Sullivan Select Real Estate Services office in Hagerstown. "I'm not my perky self."

Sullivan has always been empathetic, but "now I walk past people and think about everything they're feeling."

"This makes me really recognize people who are suffering," she said. "It makes me want to go into nursing homes and hang out with people."

The events of that day are always on her mind.

"It's probably the worst, most terrifying thing that's ever, ever, ever, ever happened to me," she said. "I try to bury myself in work so I don't think about it.

"When I think about it is when I'm getting ready to go to work and I have to go out in the world," Sullivan said. "Am I going to run into somebody who … wants to just attack me just because I'm at the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Sullivan was appraising a Sharpsburg-area property when her Tesla was hit head-on and rammed about five times by a Ford F-350 pickup truck driven by James Russell Anderson, 46, who lived across the road, police said in documents charging him with assault and other offenses.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for June 7, according to Washington County District Court records.

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Sullivan said two bones in her neck were broken by the impact of the crashes and that she broke her ankle chasing her dog, who ran off amid the chaos.

She was still in treatment in May for her injuries.

Sullivan now feels uncomfortable in crowds and decided not to attend an upcoming family reunion.

"My daughter asked me to go to her house and I can do that, one-on-one with my granddaughter or something, but with a whole house full of people and some of them are related and some of them may not be, I just can't do that," she said.

Sullivan has been thinking about how her husband has been supportive and helpful, and how friends stepped up when they heard about her injuries.

"There were so many flowers at my house," she said.

She has also been thinking about forgiveness.

"I know that God wants you to forgive people, and I'm going to have to forgive," she said. "I'm trying."

Sullivan is now more aware of her mortality, but doesn't dwell on it.

"The good thing that happened about it is I've learned to appreciate what I have," she said. "I've learned to appreciate that I'm alive, because you can take the trip any day, any minute."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Real estate agent lives with new fears, empathy after alleged assault