At four months pregnant, Laura Scarpati found herself lying on her back, motionless, in the middle of a parking lot.
The Hollywood producer had been waiting outside of her doctor’s office for an appointment when a car sped in her direction, hitting her from behind and brutally crushing her body – narrowly missing her growing belly.
Her list of injuries was gruesome: a shattered socket, broken bones and so much bruising. She spent months recovering and had to relearn how to walk.
But despite the crushing physical trauma to her pelvis and surrounding area, her baby survived.
In the aftermath of the August 2020 incident, she made a shocking discovery that fractured the way she saw her ‘absolute dream life.’
Scarpati was happily married and already had one healthy son. She was working her dream job and had just moved into a stunning new home in Rochester, New York, with her family.
‘I worked at [The Ellen DeGeneres Show], made great money. My husband edited movie trailers, he also made great money,’ Scarpati, 41, told the Daily Mail. ‘We had a beautiful [home] and a healthy two-year-old boy.’
Three weeks after moving, Scarpati went to the doctor for her second trimester labs.
Laura Scarpati poses on the Emmys red carpet. Before the accident, she worked on the Ellen DeGeneres show and made ‘great money’
Scarpati lies in a hospital bed after being run over by a car while sitting in the grass in a parking lot at her doctor’s office
‘It was a perfect August summer day in Rochester and the waiting room was full,’ she recalled. ‘Because it was still the COVID-19 pandemic, they asked me to wait outside.’
She decided to sit down in a grassy area in the parking lot and enjoy the sun while she waited. She was looking down at her phone when suddenly, everything went dark.
‘An older lady had mistook the pedal for the brake when she was trying to park,’ Scarpati explained. ‘Her car zoomed up a small grassy knoll and ran me over.
‘I had been sitting with my legs folded criss cross, when the car hit me from behind. My body was crushed under the weight of two tires.’
The tires narrowly missed her pregnant belly as one ran over her shoulder and the other over her hip.
Scarpati said she still remembers the moment ‘so vividly.’
‘It felt like I was squeezing my eyes shut so tight although it was involuntary,’ she said. ‘It was complete darkness, but my mind raced with wild thoughts.’
The expecting mother recalled feeling ‘rage more deeply than she had ever felt’ at first. But it was quickly replaced by a strong feeling of ‘peace’ during what she described as an ‘out of body’ experience.
‘I saw the scene unfolding,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘People were running toward my body. I vividly remember the view from above. I was floating just above the scene.’
Her hip socket had been shattered and she had fractured her pelvis in several places. She also had a broken rib, broken elbow and ‘severe road rash burns all over her body’
Scarpati in the hospital. The recovery was hard on her physically and mentally, and she had to relearn how to walk
When Scarpati ‘came back to her body’ she recalled lying face up in the grass and being ‘unable to move.’
The car had continued over her and was parked nearby. Onlookers rushed over to assist.
She said the first words out of her mouth were: ‘Help, I’m pregnant.’
‘I thought I was bleeding internally, about to die,’ Scarpati told the Daily Mail. ‘I thought neither [me nor the baby] were going to make it through this alive.
‘I couldn’t move. The people around me were doing everything they could [to help], and I surrendered to the moment, recognizing the life I led up until this point was full and beautiful and a gift.
‘I was completely at peace with dying. I thought, “I have lived an amazing, full life. It’s okay to die. It’s not scary at all to me if I die right now.” It was a full surrender.’
Scarpati was rushed to the hospital via ambulance, but wasn’t allowed to have any pain medicine on the way because of the pregnancy.
‘The pain came on fast and furious on the way to the hospital,’ she recalled. ‘Everything hurt. My hip and pelvic region felt like they were on fire.
‘My back felt like it was on fire. It was physical pain more excruciating than anything I’ve ever experienced.’
At the hospital, she learned her hip socket had been shattered and her pelvis fractured in several places.
She also had a broken rib, broken elbow and ‘severe road rash burns all over her body.’ But most importantly to her, her baby was okay.
‘My body was broken. But my baby would survive. I had hope and purpose,’ Scarpati said.
‘Miraculously my uterus, while dangerously close to the shattered hip socket and pelvis, was unharmed.’
The uterus is located inside the pelvic cavity, which sits below the abdomen and between the hip bones.
She explained that the way in which the tires hit her body, there was no impact on the protective sac that housed her fetus.
‘My head and spine were not damaged,’ she added. ‘I didn’t have a traumatic brain injury or any internal bleeding.’
Scarpati underwent surgery during which doctors put a plate and six screws in her hip.
The recovery was immensely hard on her physically and mentally, as she had to relearn how to walk and take care of herself again.
She spent a total of three weeks in the hospital and three more months recovering at home. The mom described that period as ‘dark,’ adding that because of COVID, she was only allowed one visitor for a few hours a day when she was in the hospital.
‘I spent my time alone, forced to sit with myself,’ she explained. ‘I worked to keep a glass-half-full approach, but there were a lot of dark times. [A lot of] pain, depression, lack of agency over my own body, not being able to see my two-year-old son.’
Scarpati told the Daily Mail her legal team had reached a settlement with the driver’s insurance company to pay for all the medical bills.
Scarpati was in a wheelchair after leaving the hospital. She spent a total of three weeks in the hospital and three more months recovering at home
In January 2021, Scarpati gave birth to her second son, now five
She credits her husband with helping her get through it, describing him as her ‘rock.’
‘He showed up physically, helping me in the bathroom, he changed my bandages, he sat with me, he cried with me, he took care of our two-year-old, he held so much,’ she said.
Scarpati told the Daily Mail that she was paid her full salary for the eight weeks she was in recovery.
‘Ellen also called when I was in ICU to check on me,’ she said. ‘I was hooked up to a heart monitor when she called and it started beeping fast cause my heart was beating faster – I got nervous when she called!
‘But she was warm, and kind to me. So were the executive producers and my whole team.’
The producer said her team sent food, flowers and gifts for her two-year-old.
‘I felt wrapped up in love by the entire team,’ she added.
Still, about two months into recovery, Scarpati said she had an epiphany that changed everything for her.
She was lying in bed ‘wondering why this had happened,’ when she started to wonder if there was a ‘purpose to the accident.’
She then began to analyze her life and realized she wasn’t as happy as she thought.
‘I was struggling, trying to be the perfect mom, giving everything to be the best supervising producer possible [at work], and I was hard on myself,’ Scarpati said. ‘I berated myself when I would feel like I messed something up at work, or said something wrong in a meeting.
‘My ego was inflated because of my job, and I put people on pedestals that were not living peaceful lives. My mind spun on a lot of negative, fear-based, toxic loops, and that left room for very little else.
She said that she had been ‘running on fumes,’ and ‘made no time to know myself or even realize how I was actually holding on by a thread.’
Scarpati said she started to look at the accident as a blessing in disguise because it gave her a new lease on life.
‘While the accident broke my body, it cracked me open in a way that I felt like I was discovering life for the first time,’ she said.
She no longer works in TV and instead runs her own podcast, The Woo Report
‘I feel like I’m on borrowed time. And all that ego from working in Hollywood and trying to be this picture-perfect mom melted into the realization that none of that actually matters.’
She told the Daily Mail that the whole experience ‘completely changed how I show up for myself, for my family, for my friends.’
In January 2021, Scarpati gave birth to her second son, now five, who she described as the ‘sweetest, calmest, happiest’ little boy.
She carried the baby to term and had a C-section after her hip surgeon decided ‘he didn’t want me in stirrups.’
‘The hip was still very much not fully healed when I had the baby,’ she said.
Scarpati is now fully healed, despite some ‘occasional’ discomfort, adding that, ‘For the most part, I’m able to live a full life without pain.’
The mother of two no longer works in TV, and instead runs her own podcast titled The Woo Report, in which she teaches people how to ‘know themselves better.’
Scarpati also made a documentary called The Isaiah House Project that focuses on near-death experiences.
Ultimately, she told the Daily Mail that she hopes sharing her story will inspire others to ‘examine their own lives.’
‘Get really honest with yourself in a way that is non-judgmental but curious,’ she urged.
‘Because when we invest in ourselves, when we carve out time to look inward and assess how we really feel, it’s how we begin to heal. And a healed person can show up for others more effectively. And that’s how we make real change in this world.’
