Friends found God again and again after traumatic crash

Looking back on a life-changing car crash nearly a year ago, Charlotte “Charlie” Culjat remembers the trauma, the weeks in the hospital and the months of rehabilitation, which continues.

But Charlie also remembers dozens of “God moments,” times when she knew the Lord was present – through the actions of a Good Samaritan, nurses and physical therapists, friends, relatives, community members – and another helper, the now-canonized St. Carlo Acutis.

Those “God moments” weren’t necessarily extraordinary, Charlie said, just her Savior showing up when she and her close friend, Gabbie Keller, needed Him most.

The two classmates, now seniors at V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, shared their story last spring with a group from St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Omaha. Charlie’s story has also been shared on the “Life Plan” program on Spirit Catholic Radio, hosted by Deacon Bart Zavaletta, and on his podcast.

Together, the friends recalled some of the small but wondrous moments they felt God’s closeness following the crash.

Charlie, left, and Gabbie

THE CRASH

On Oct. 19, Charlie had been celebrating her cousin’s wedding in Roca, south of Lincoln, with two of her brothers and her parents, Matt and Mary Culjat. The parents planned to stay in town longer, so Charlie and her brothers drove back separately.

About 7:30 p.m., they were heading through Lincoln on U.S. Highway 77 when the silver Toyota Corolla they were traveling in was T-boned by another car, with the driver’s side of the Corolla taking the impact.

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Charlie was seated behind her brother Will, who had been driving, while her brother Harrison was a front-seat passenger. After the initial impact, the Corolla slammed into a light pole on Harrison’s side.

Will suffered a concussion, bumps and bruises and was treated at a hospital and released that night.

Charlie and Harrison suffered breaks in the same vertebrae of their spines and severe concussions. She also had sprained ankles, a broken nose, pelvis and tailbone and cuts requiring stitches and staples.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

“The first thing that I have a memory of was waking up and my arm is already outside my (broken) car window,” Charlie said. “I’m holding hands with some random, kind of middle-aged man, and I still don’t know who he is, but he had just seen the crash and there were no paramedics or anybody on the scene yet. So he pulled over and just held my hand the whole time until paramedics arrived.

“And I just know that that was straight from God,” she said. “He was saying things that were comforting. He did not leave me until I had help.”

CALLING ON CARLO

St. Carlo Acutis

The first “Carlo moment” was when Charlie was in the ER, and her mother texted a request for prayers to a family group chat, particularly through the intercession of the then-Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager devoted to the Eucharist who died of leukemia in 2006.

 “She had known that I really liked Carlo,” Charlie said. “I was first introduced to him in eighth grade.”

An uncle who received the text, however, didn’t know about Charlie’s ties to Carlo.

But “he had already asked for his intercession before we even said a word about him,” Charlie said.

WISE WORDS

When Charlie’s grandmother arrived at the hospital, she told Charlie, “Things like this are what we offer up for others.”

“She asked me if there was anybody who I wanted to offer up my suffering for,” Charlie said. “So I offered it up for a teammate of mine who I had known was going through a hard time. That was another God moment that I was able to even consciously do that.”

Charlie said she had plenty of pain to offer up. In the ICU, “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t walk. Any simple adjustments hurt.”

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PRE-SURGERY PEP TALK AND PRAYERS

Another God moment was when her trap shooting coach, Matthew Medlock, visited her in the intensive care unit and gave her a “pre-surgery pep talk.”

“That was just so helpful and comforting,” Charlie said.

“We all know how coaches can be,” she said. “A lot of times they’re a little hard on us, but in a way that helps us to better ourselves.” He brought up things he had told her before as her coach and had her apply them to the surgery she was facing.

An uncle made sure she received an apostolic blessing before the surgery.

“The nurse who was in the room while I was getting this blessing had stopped everything that she was doing and made sure that she prayed with us,” Charlie said. “That was a really sweet moment.”

A FRIEND AFTER SURGERY AND BEYOND

Gabbie was there when Charlie woke up from surgery.

Charlie being hospitalized in Lincoln made it difficult to visit, Gabbie said. But when she arrived several days after the crash, her arms were full, with gifts for Charlie, for her family, plus gifts others had asked her to bring.

After her visit, on the car ride home, Gabbie became overwhelmed with emotion.

She found herself not ready to go home, not wanting to be alone, and not able to talk to the person she normally talks to when she’s struggling.

“So I found myself pulling into St. Stephen’s (St. Stephen the Martyr Church in Omaha), where I go to church.”

Gabbie sat before the Lord and bawled – for a lot of reasons, she said.

“That was really nice to be able to just sit there and feel all the things, cry, be thankful that she was alive, be a little bit angry that it happened in the first place. But yeah, that was very, very much a huge God moment for me.”

That visit to the chapel changed her, Gabbie said.

Since then, “I’ve been going to God a lot more,” to ask “Can You help me? What do I do?” or to plead “Please take this from me.”

GOD AND CARLO EVERYWHERE

Following surgery and a move to another floor, “Everything after that was a God moment,” Charlie said. “It was just obvious.”

God was working everywhere, especially through her caregivers, she said.

Meanwhile, Carlo Acutis gifts and prayers filled her room. A friend, Amelia Beacom, brought her Carlo Acutis socks and a wooden statue of him. An aunt brought the saint’s prayer card. 

CLOSER TO HOME AND FRIENDS

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After a few delays, Charlie was transported to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Omaha. 

Her friends, especially Gabbie, were thrilled to have Charlie closer.

They decided to throw her a Halloween party in her room, where they simply ate pizza and talked.

“We just wanted to give her some normalcy,” Gabbie said. “That was a huge blessing that we were able to do that.”

AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE CARLO

A pediatrician “came in and randomly asked me who my favorite saint was,” Charlie said. “That’s when I started talking about Carlo and telling her everything that I knew about him.

The doctor “loved his story” because she saw “kids sick and hurt all day long,” Charlie said. “She knows how Carlo can relate to them.”

PRAYING WITH HIS RELIC

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Some parishioners at the Culjats’ parish, Mary Our Queen in Omaha, had a relic of Blessed Carlo and loaned it to Charlie’s family while she was at Madonna. The family often prayed with the relic.

Gabbie happened to be there on at least one of those occasions. Mary Culjat invited her, as well as some nurses, to pray.

Gabbie had forgotten about the hoodie she chose to wear that day, a favorite one from a Steubenville conference. It had Carlo Acutis on it, perfect for the occasion.

A FRUITFUL FRIENDSHIP

After the collision, Charlie grew closer to a good friend, a person who had been baptized as a Catholic but didn’t really practice the faith.

That friend had been injured in a crash a few months before and helped coach Charlie through her ups and downs.

 “We were able to help each other,” Charlie said, because she coached the friend in matters of faith.

 “So now she’s reading the Bible, she’s trying to go to church. It’s so amazing to see that good can come out of bad.”

A GRADUAL COMEBACK

After returning home, Charlie was able to resume schoolwork part-time, while also recovering through outpatient therapy. She started by going to just one class a day, but even that was stressful and tiring, she said. Focusing in class was difficult after suffering the concussion. Her injuries kept her uncomfortable.

But her cognitive abilities and overall health improved over time.

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

As she started thinking more clearly, she also sought to understand more. 

She said she wasn’t asking “Why me?” as much as “OK, this happened. Now where are You, Lord? It happened, but talk to me. Tell me something.”

At times she felt abandoned.

Charlie said she had heard about people who came close to death and saw God or the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Not that I was super close to death, but close enough that I’m like ‘Hey, where’s my great vision, or whatever?’”

Though she never had a miraculous vision, “that’s OK,” Charlie said. “He reveals Himself to me in many, many other ways.”

THE MUSTARD SEED

Todd Leutzinger, a cross-country coach at Skutt Catholic, helped her through Jesus’ Parable of the Mustard Seed, explaining that God can do great things, even with something small, like the mustard seed.

She didn’t need to understand everything, he told her. Over time, Charlie came to understand that God can work through small, seemingly insignificant moments of faith.

“Even still today – sometimes I’ll feel abandoned, He doesn’t love me, He’s gone, whatever – looking back on all this is so helpful. I think we can all do that, whatever’s going on, you can look and see” where God has been in moments of need.

For her, “those little things” – that were shared through her family, friends, caregivers and St. Carlo Acutis – all helped.

“It helped me feel safe and calm. And that’s what God is, right? He’s your Dad, He’s your safety. Whether you’re feeling that safety through other things, those are all things from God.”

(Progress note: Charlie has been able to resume running with her cross country team this fall, but cannot compete. Under careful medical guidance, she’s been able to run as far as 1.25 miles. She is considering studying for a medical profession, perhaps physical therapy, because of the care she’s received.)

Charlie and her parents, Mary and Matt Culjat of Mary Our Queen Parish in Omaha