The New York Times, "In Door Safety Cases, Ford Settles and a Mother Struggles"

Deborah Seliner says she does not remember the accident, just one moment when she was driving her used 1997 Ford pickup along Highway 6 near College Station and the next moment when she was in the dark carrying on a conversation with someone she decided was God. She was begging him, "God, please, if that is you, let me live for my babies." Her truck, she found later, had blown a rear tire, sending her off the road onto a grassy divider. The truck rolled over, ejecting her, even though she had apparently been wearing a seat belt, through the open driver's side door and hurling her 20 yards onto the pavement.

She got her wish: she lived but is paralyzed from the midchest down and must use a wheelchair. Now, two and a half years later, Ms. Seliner, 36, a single mother living near Texas A&M and struggling to care for her son, Tristen, 4, and daughter, Lilly, 3, has become a central figure in new safety cases involving Ford. This time the issue is not Firestone tires but door latches, specifically springs with the wrong specifications that some experts say cause doors to fly open during the extreme pressures of accidents.