THE LONG BLINK A True Story Of Trauma, Forgiveness And One Man's Fight For Safer Roads

Susan Slattery, a well-known professor at a Baltimore area university, was one of 3,686 people killed in crashes with large trucks on American roadways in 2010. Her sons, Peter and Matthew, were two of the 80,000 people the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) says were injured in crashes that same year. According to the FMCSA, the number of injuries and deaths by large trucks on American roads has steadily risen since the crash that devastated the Slattery family at mile marker 190 on Interstate 80 in Ohio. Now, more than 4700 people die each year in large truck crashes on American roadways, a 30 percent increase in just seven years.

To bring these statistics to the forefront, award-winning investigative journalist Brian Kuebler, has written the compelling narrative nonfiction book, The Long Blink, The True Story of Trauma, Forgiveness and One Man's Fight for Safer Roads, which details the journey of Ed Slattery, an ordinary man propelled into an extraordinary life with a force almost equal to the tractor-trailer that slammed into his family's car. Ed Slattery's struggle is intimate and powerful, as he deals with the heart-wrenching loss of his wife and the disabling of his son at the hands of an industry, whose policies which he, as a United States government economist, feels can value profit over life.

Anger and frustration boil, but also serve to fuel Ed's remarkable transformation into a lobbyist on Capitol Hill battling for safer roads. Detailed in The Long Blink, Ed's story is also about finding purpose in becoming a champion for the disabled and attempting forgiveness in a sobering and emotionally explosive confrontation with the driver, who fell asleep and caused the crash.

"The Long Blink is a story about surviving trauma; losing the love of your life and raising children who will never be the same," says Kuebler. "I was moved to tell the Slattery's devastating yet powerful story as a way to help others find strength, purpose and forgiveness in tragic loss in order to build a new reality for a new life."

Author Brian Kuebler will be making an appearance and signing copies of The Long Blink at Brilliant Baltimore Book Festival on November 3, 2019 at 1pm. More info here.

Brian Kuebler is an award-winning investigative journalist in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a television reporter for twenty years and has written, published, and broadcast thousands of stories in his career. Kuebler has won three Edward R. Murrow Awards for his writing ability, two Emmys, and recognized for 'Outstanding Enterprise Reporting' by the Associated Press. Two of those honors were awarded to Brian for the reporting of the story that eventually became his debut narrative nonfiction book, THE LONG BLINK.

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The Long Blink is now available wherever books are sold.