Nearly six years after he was critically injured, former KVIA news reporter and anchor Evan Folan opens up about the terrifying accident.
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KVIA previously reported that on Jul. 23, 2019, Folan was on the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles when a runaway tire hit his vehicle. He sustained a traumatic brain injury. His parents were also told he would have as long as half a year of intensive outpatient rehabilitation.
During a recent interview with his old station, Folan spoke out about the accident and his journey to recovery. Just before the accident, the former journalist had moved to the West Coast to start a new career.
“I had landed a six-figure deal,” he recalled. “I had the paperwork in my passenger seat. And I was leaving to go to my next appointment.”
However, things for Folan came to a halt when, all of a sudden, the 200-pound runaway tire hit his vehicle. It was going more than 100mph when it hit the car. He was crushed into the hood.
“I was convulsing, having a seizure,” Folan continued. “There was so much bleeding from my brain.”
Folan said he flatlined for the first time as the EMT started working on him. He then hit the accelerator, crashing into another vehicle. His car stopped after hitting the median on the highway.
“The fact that I was not decapitated is insane,” Folan pointed out. “Because [the tire] hit me in the head. It broke my hands and snapped my neck in two places. The EMT said when he came up to my car, he thought I had been decapitated. He could not find my head.”
The EMT had not been called to the accident. He was just a few cars behind Folan when the tire hit.
The Former News Anchor Shares More About His Accident
Continuing to speak about his accident, Folan said his heartbeat came back after the roof of his vehicle was removed.
“[Rescuer] said it looked like, you know, those two-liter bottles of Coke. It looked like somebody had taken that full of my blood and sprayed it everywhere in the car.”
First responders were able to get him out of the vehicle just in time to lose his pulse once again. Folan had flatlined twice before getting to the hospital. He was just minutes from Los Angeles’ most well-known trauma center.
“It was a perfect place for a hideous thing to happen,” Folan said about the accident.
Folan was in a coma for two days following the accident. He experienced a temporal bone fracture, facial laceration, and broke his neck in two places. He also had a significant brain bleed and broke his hand. It took him years to recover.
Following his accident, Folan established the Toro and Tides Foundation to support his recovery.