From Trauma to Triumph: Surviving Near-Fatal Crash, Then Cancer

Two Years After Devastating Car Accident, Wendy Sanchez Returns to Huntington Health, Where Doctors Detect and Help Her Defeat Breast Cancer

In 2022, Wendy Sanchez’s trauma care team emphasized that she should pay close attention to her body and come back if she ever noticed anything concerning.

“We’ll take care of you,” they told her.

Sanchez, 29, had been a patient at Pasadena-based Huntington Health, an affiliate of Cedars-Sinai, for months. She and her husband were airlifted there after a near-fatal head-on collision in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles. She had grown close to the trauma surgeons, nurses and other providers who saved their lives and cared for them throughout their long recoveries.

Her caregivers’ prompting to always listen to her body and her confidence in their expertise led Sanchez back to the medical center two years later when she felt a lump in her breast and felt certain it was cancer.

“There are closer hospitals to where I live, but I knew the doctors and nurses at Huntington cared about my health and wellbeing,” Sanchez said. “If they were able to save me after my car accident, I knew they would take great care of me during cancer, as well.”

Today, thanks to Huntington Cancer Center, Sanchez is cancer-free.

While Sanchez’s intuition about where to go for cancer care was spot-on, her medical oncologist, Niki Tank, MD, praised her for immediately noticing a change in her body and seeking a diagnosis.

“I remind patients they are their own best advocate and to not be intimidated by the medical system,” Tank said. “Wendy paid attention to her body and her instincts, and she is doing well today. Her future is very, very bright.”

Healing Habit Sparks Discovery

The car accident in 2022 left Sanchez with a fractured collarbone, ribs and sternum; a broken lumbar spine; a broken tibia and fibula; and damaged internal organs. Surgeons had to remove her colon and two feet of her small intestine. Multiple surgeries to repair her body left her with additional scars.

Her plastic surgeon, Sanjeev Puri, MD, recommended a therapeutic ointment for a long scar stretching from her abdomen to her chest. Applying the ointment became part of her nightly routine.

One evening, smoothing the ointment up her torso, she felt a lump just above her breast.

“I panicked,” Sanchez said. “I told my husband, ‘I think I’m touching cancer.’”

The next morning Sanchez went to her doctor at Huntington Ambulatory Care Center. A subsequent mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy led to a diagnosis of triple-positive ductal carcinoma. This type of breast cancer has receptors for estrogen, progesterone and HER2 and can be treated with targeted therapies.  

Tank, who specializes in breast cancer for adolescents and young adults (people ages 15 to 39), said triple-positive ductal carcinoma is more common in women younger than 50.

“Breast cancer among people in Wendy’s age group tends to be very aggressive and spread quickly,” Tank said.

Sanchez’s cancer was diagnosed at stage 1, meaning it had not spread. But the tumor cells in the breast were large.

Her care team, including Tank and surgical oncologist Amy Polverini, MD, advised chemotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy.

“I didn’t need a second opinion,” Sanchez said. “I trusted them immediately.”

On May 2, 2025, Polverini removed the tumor, five lymph nodes and Sanchez’s breasts. When Sanchez later underwent breast reconstruction, her plastic surgeon of choice was Puri—who had recommended the scar ointment that led to her discovery of the lump.

Breast Cancer in Young Women

Breast cancer among women under 50 is on the rise. According to the American Cancer Society, the number of cases has increased about 1.4% each year since 2012—double the rate seen in older women. A 2024 JAMA Network study showed rising rates of hormone receptor-positive tumors in younger women.

Experts are not entirely sure why.

Sanchez asked Tank if extreme trauma to her body from the car accident could have spurred cancer.

“There are things we still don’t know about why breast cancer develops,” Tank told Sanchez, who was not at high risk to develop the disease.

“While the data isn’t conclusive, there may be a link between physical trauma, the body’s stress response and inflammation that can create an environment where cancer cells thrive. But this doesn’t mean car accidents cause cancer.”

Among known breast cancer risk factors are family history of the disease, tobacco and alcohol use, and a diet of heavily processed foods.

In another nod to the importance of self-advocacy, Tank noted that because Sanchez was not at high risk for developing breast cancer, she would not have been screened for the disease at her age. American Cancer Society guidelines recommend mammogram screening for women at average risk beginning at 45.

A Full New Life

Sanchez is embracing her new life and new memories these days. She and her husband are just back from Disney World, still on a Magic Kingdom high.

“Looking back, I can’t believe everything I’ve survived,” Sanchez said. “I miss the life I had before, but I’m living this new life to the fullest.”

As she left a recent doctor’s appointment, Sanchez met another breast cancer survivor who shared that it had been 30 years since her own diagnosis.

Sanchez smiled.

“I look forward to saying that one day, too,” she said.