A former star athlete who nearly died as the result of drinking and driving is getting a message out and she delivered that message to some students in Council Bluffs on Thursday.

Sarah Panzau hopes her scars and struggles will make an impression on young lives. She used to be an All-American volleyball player until she lost an arm and nearly lost her life in a crash.

"I fractured my mandible in seven places," she says. "And it was broke from both sides. I broke my collar bone. I broke my scapula. I fractured every vertebra in my back but five of them. I separated my actual ribcage from my spinal cord."

That's just a partial list of her injuries.

On August 23rd, 2003, at the age of 21 with a blood alcohol content almost four times the legal limit, Sarah got behind the wheel. She was driving too fast on an exit ramp, rolled her car and was thrown out the back window of the vehicle. The first paramedics on the scene thought she was dead.

Sarah says, "The one got there first and he said to the other one, 'call the coroner.' He said 'she's not alive.' And the East St. Louis Police officer told them that he had seen me take a breath. 'She's alive. I'd seen her breathe.'"

Four-and-a-half-years and 36 surgeries later, she shares her story with teenagers.

Panzau says, "I decided I was going to need to be able to look in the mirror every day and be OK with what I was looking back at. And I thought the best way to do that was to try to show other people and teach other people what happens when people make poor choices like I did."

Sarah says the chance to change young lives keeps her going.

"The impact is being made," she says. "And I feel like if I were to stop doing that -- I feel like I have a lot of information, vital information that people would never know about. So as long as I continue to make that impact, I will continue to do what I do."

Sarah's presentation to teens includes showing highlights from her volleyball career and graphic pictures from her car crash.