A random act

Cindi Broaddus didn't realize that her life was about to be forever altered as she sat in the passenger seat of a car on a lonely highway. A single mother of three, and a delighted new grandmother, she was thinking only of her imminent, well-earned vacation when a gallon glass jar filled with sulfuric acid, tossed from an overpass by an unknown assailant, came crashing through the windshield. Cindi was showered with glass and flesh-eating liquid, leaving her blinded, screaming in agony, and burned almost beyond recognition. Doctors gave her little better than a 30 percent chance of survival. But she did survive--and after excruciating years of recuperation and seemingly endless sessions of skin grafts and reconstructive surgery, she emerged from her ordeal in many ways stronger than she had ever been before. Cindi's story is one of hope and transcendence, born of a determination to turn a nightmarish experience into something positive and uplifting.