{"id":58357,"date":"2012-04-19T08:39:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T12:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=58357"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:13:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:13:57","slug":"class-of-2012-rob-freyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/class-of-2012-rob-freyer\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2012: Rob Freyer"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the University counts down to Commencement, UConn Today is featuring some of this year\u2019s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. For additional profiles of students in the Class of 2012, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/a>
Rob Freyer '12 (CLAS).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four years ago, on April 19, 2008, senior Rob Freyer\u2019s life nearly ended. That night at about 9 p.m., while driving his older brother\u2019s car, he pulled out to pass a pick-up truck towing a boat on a road in Stafford Springs, Conn. He couldn\u2019t pick up enough speed to pass, however, and instead crashed into an oncoming Chevy Trailblazer.<\/p>\n

The next two weeks he spent in a coma in Hartford Hospital, unaware of his massive injuries \u2013 the worst included two broken ribs, two broken legs, a broken wrist, a head injury, and an intestinal tract shredded when a clutch pedal broke through his pelvis.<\/p>\n

When he woke up, oddly enough, \u201cOne of the first things I did was run my tongue over my teeth to make sure they were there.\u201d They were, but his memory of what happened that night was gone.<\/p>\n

Four years and many surgeries later, as he prepares to graduate with an English major from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Freyer has completed a novel based on what he learned from the accident and its aftermath. Called Triumph<\/em>, the story chronicles a young man\u2019s painful recovery from a terrible car crash and the reactions of his friends, old and new, to his physical disabilities, such as a colostomy. It tells of struggles with depression, suicide attempts, and his eventual spiritual awakening on the eve of another serious operation to reverse his colostomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was crying the entire time I wrote it,\u201d he says. Writing the novel has \u201cdefinitely been a healing process.\u201d He chose to write a novel rather than a memoir because of his memory loss, but he admits that the novel is closely biographical.<\/p>\n

Depression was the most difficult challenge he faced after the accident, Freyer says. His girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat that night, suffered a broken leg and broken collarbone and was hospitalized for a month. (Drivers of the other cars were not seriously injured). She broke off their relationship, and his next few relationships were unsuccessful, too. He felt that he was repulsive to people, with a colostomy bag, lingering Tourette\u2019s syndrome tics from the head injuries, and multiple titanium implants replacing his bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like Pinocchio \u2013 I didn\u2019t feel like I was a real boy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t recognize himself \u2013 40 pounds lighter, long hair shaven off, unable to run like the track star he had been in high school in Wolcott, Conn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to work to create a brand new identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

And work he did. He returned to UConn the fall semester after his accident. He became an RA and an Orientation leader, joined the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, joined a fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, and became vice president of Active Minds, which works to de-stigmatize mental health issues.<\/p>\n

And he wrote. Two weeks before his colostomy was reversed, he wrote 80 pages of what became his novel, then put it aside for a year. This spring he finished it and began looking for an agent.<\/p>\n

His wounds now completely healed, he plans to go to graduate school to study higher education administration. He wants to work in residential life with first-year students. And continue to write. His next book, he says, will be called Vacillation<\/em>, and it will be about a character working through depression.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really learned a lot about love,\u201d he says, \u201cabout dealing with my experiences and the trauma I faced.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Rob Freyer didn\u2019t make it through his freshman year. Critically injured in a car accident before the year ended, he has now written a novel about the experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":58800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[38],"class_list":["post-58357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 15:59:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58357"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200729,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58357\/revisions\/200729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/58800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58357"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=58357"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}