CHINATOWN — It was a beautiful, sunny day on May 19, 2009. Alex Clark was in a cab on her way from the Sweets and Snacks Expo at McCormick Place back to her hotel.
The budding chocolatier was in town from Detroit for a few days to learn about her craft. As Clark took money out of her bag to pay the cab fare, she looked up for a split-second. That’s when her taxi smashed head-on into a black SUV, she said.
Then, darkness.
Clark said she woke to the sound of screaming before realizing it was her own voice. Two bystanders — a man and a woman — seemed to appear from nowhere to help pull her from the wreckage, she said.
They took her to the curb, collected her belongings — including chocolate samples and some of her teeth — and stayed with her until an ambulance arrived.
“They told me, ‘You should call your mom,’ and I’m so glad I did because … I didn’t know everything was so swollen and that it was the last time I could speak for a while,” Clark said.
Two emergency medical services workers placed Clark on a stretcher and rushed her to the hospital. The man and woman, who appeared in emotional distress, waved as she was taken away, she said.
“They said goodbye like they were my parents,” Clark said.
At least one tooth was left at the scene.
That day was the beginning of a long and personal journey for Clark. She underwent facial reconstruction surgery, completed graduate school and used settlement money from the crash to rebuild her life and achieve her dream of opening a chocolate shop, Bon Bon Bon.
Fifteen years later, Clark, 35, is ready to tie up the loose ends of her trauma: connecting with the good Samaritans and EMS workers who cared for her.
“I always knew it was something that I had to do,” she said. “I think of these people all the time. … I just never really got to say thank you.
“I want them to know, especially that lady who was so worried, that I’m OK.”
‘This Is Bad’
Clark said the crash happened at the T-shaped intersection of Clark Street and Cermak Road in Chinatown.
The SUV, which Clark later learned was uninsured, ran a red light, causing the collision, she said. The SUV was also hit by drivers coming from the opposite direction and spun into traffic, resulting in a multi-car crash.
Clark blacked out during impact, but came to in an out-of-body experience, she said. Though she didn’t know what had happened, she knew it was bad by the expression on the woman’s face — a memory that still lingers.
“I was really in shock. I didn’t have an emotional state at the time, you know?” Clark said. “But I experienced it very much through her. [It was] the look on her face where I was like, ‘Oh, this is bad.’”
Clark remembers the man and woman tending to her with napkins and a cup of ice from Dunkin’ Donuts — although there isn’t a Dunkin’ location nearby. It’s a small detail that could mean something to someone else, Clark said.
After the crash, Clark underwent facial reconstruction surgery at the University of Michigan. Her cheek and chin were shattered, and her jaw had broken into “chunks” with the teeth still attached, she said.
With 21 new teeth and a long way to heal physically and emotionally, she struggled to accept her new look.
“I think there’s still a part of me that has a hard time accepting that,” Clark said. “There’s like a new reality now.
“I just didn’t want it to be new or different, and I still don’t really want it to be new or different. But the me now has learned about the ‘different’ part and accepted it and learned that it’s not so bad.”
Only after she broke her nose a year later while boogie boarding with a friend did Clark begin to feel like she could take back the power that had been stripped of her in the crash, she said.
“It was actually really helpful with my … emotions about my face because I did it to myself,” she said. “I did it having fun. I look at my nose being crooked and I am like, ‘Oh yeah, that was a good day.’”
Still, for the next eight to 10 years, Clark did what she could to to put the crash as far behind her as possible, she said.
She focused on honing her chocolate making skills and starting her business. She was awarded a settlement and used it to pay off debt, help with school and cover bills, she said.
Some of the money went toward opening Bon Bon Bon in Detroit, now a successful chocolate shop with four locations.
On the shop’s opening day, Clark said she had only $7 to her name; the settlement money was gone. But for the chocolatier, it was a relief.
The remnants of the crash were gone — or so she thought.
‘I Think About What You Did’
As time went on, Clark still thought about the impact her rescuers had on her.
In February, her employees urged her to finally share her story publicly in the hopes that it would reach the right people and perhaps trigger a memory.
“I don’t even need to see them,” Clark said. “I just have this thing that I want them to know: I think about what you did all the time and I appreciate it so much.
“And I want you to know that you’re a big part of making possible this thing that has now impacted so many people and brought joy to so many people’s lives. They essentially were the beginning of turning something really, really bad into something not bad.”
In a recent post on her shop’s social media, Clark recalled her experience, including descriptions of the four people to the best of her recollection.
Clark described the man and woman as being in their 30s to 50s with average builds and light complexions. The woman may have had a lighter hair color, possibly blond, and the man resembled TV host George Stephanopoulos, she said.
She wasn’t sure if they were a couple or knew each other, but they interacted as if they were coworkers or friends, she said.
The EMS workers were men in their late 20s to early 30s, one possibly older and with darker hair, she said. His demeanor was “intense … but still kind and calm,” Clark said.
“There was a moment he explained to me that they were putting in some sort of IV access … and it felt like he was actually giving me a soft intro to the fact that I was not leaving a hospital right away,” she said. “His general demeanor, but especially this capacity to say one thing but actually tell someone something else entirely, felt familiar and made me feel like he was born and raised in the Midwest.”
The other EMS worker was a military veteran who said he had been shot in action while serving and had once broken his jaw after falling down a flight of stairs, Clark said.
“He was super, super sympathetic to the point of seeming in pain himself witnessing my condition,” she said. “The vivacious big-hearted type.”
Both told Clark they were Detroit Red Wings fans.
Clark said they later stopped by the hospital to check on her once she had stabilized and brought her a treat, though she hadn’t been cleared to eat.
“In that case, you snooze, you lose,” she remembers them teasing.
Clark never saw any of the four again, but wants them to know that their efforts to save her weren’t in vain: She’s a thriving business owner who has come a long way since the worst day of her life.
Given the trauma of that experience, Clark is sure she’s not the only one in the group who has thought about that day since.
“We did it,” she said. “It feels like they’re a part of this thing that I did and they’ve been with me along the whole thing and they don’t even know. They don’t even know that they played a part in that or how important that was.”
At the very least, Clark said she believes she owes them some sweets.
“If I can find them, I would really like to thank them and send them (a lot of) chocolate,” she wrote in her online post.
Anyone with information about the incident can contact Clark via email at AlexC@bonbonbon.com with the subject line “Chicago Taxi Accident.”
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