Victims Face Offenders
THE setting: Upper New York State’s Genesee County DWI Victims Panel. The scene: Six persons, bound together by the grief they share and holding pictures of their loved ones, participate in a painful attempt to make an impact on offenders convicted of driving while intoxicated.
The following are excerpts from their remarks, condensed by Awake!
The Victims
A father: “This is our son Eric. He was an ideal son, full of humor, full of smiles. Now I’m a sad, grieving father with a deceased son 17 years old. In an instant, gone were our dreams, our hopes for the future, our love—killed by a drunk driver.
“I go with my wife to the cemetery. It’s the last thread we have to hang on to. We read Eric’s words engraved on the marker: ‘I will miss you with all my heart, and I hope we won’t be far apart; and if we are, I will cry because I never wanted to say good-bye.’ And we don’t want to say good-bye either.”
A young widow: “This is my family. A 22-year-old man left a wedding reception claiming he did not feel intoxicated. In his pickup truck, traveling at a high speed down a dark, unfamiliar road, he approached a warning sign and ignored it, then continued through a stop sign and crashed into us. The next moment I recall was awakening with a painful pressure in my chest. As I struggled to open my eyes, I managed to get a glimpse of my husband slumped over the steering wheel. I heard my baby crying. I remember asking, ‘What happened?’
“No one answered. My husband, Bill, 31 years old; my oldest son, 6 years old; and my twin boys, 4 years old, were dead. My only hope left was my little nine-month-old girl, who was hospitalized with a severe head injury.
“As I lay in the hospital on a dreary, wet, Wednesday morning, my husband and three boys were buried. I thought of four coffins, four broken bodies, four persons that I would never see, hear, or touch again. How was I supposed to go on?
“My little daughter and I were forced to start a new life. I sold my home, as I was unable to live with the memories. I find it hard to cope with the fact that my husband and three beautiful boys are in the cemetery. All the care, the worry, the love, was not enough to protect them. The pain, frustration, and emptiness I feel cannot be put into words. They lived for such a short time.
“The person who took the lives of my family was not a hardened criminal or an alcoholic or a repeat offender—just an average person out for an evening of socializing. I’m paying this awful price because someone chose to drink and drive. May this never happen to you or someone you love.”
A mother: “My daughter’s name is Rhonda Lynn. She was to have graduated from high school on June 21. On June 10 she was taking the last lesson of her driver-education course. On that day two individuals who had been partying and drinking heavily made an irresponsible decision to drive. In one brief moment, they made it the last day of Rhonda’s life, as well as the lives of her driver-education teacher and two of her classmates.
“That afternoon I received a call saying that Rhonda had been involved in an accident. My only thought was that I had to be with her. When I arrived at the hospital, I was told not to go in to see Rhonda. But I had to be sure. I made them pull the sheet away. Her face was so swollen and badly scratched. I kept staring at her beautiful eyes and touching her arm, but I couldn’t make her crushed body better. All I could do was stroke her beautiful hair. There was no response. She was gone.
“I had the unfortunate task of telling her father and brothers that she was gone. Now our days are not the same because of the horrendous void. If we could just hug her, hold her one more time. Life will never be the same. All we have left are the memories.”
An Offender
A young man: “My story is different from the ones you’ve heard so far. Mine begins 23 months ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday. My girlfriend was bowling in a league that night, so I decided to have a few drinks and watch her bowl. I had five or six glasses of beer in the next two and a half hours. I figured I’d be responsible and wait an hour before I drove home.
“About 30 minutes into my trip home, there was an ambulance on the road, and there was a man in the middle of the road directing traffic. I never saw that man until it was too late. I tried to swerve and put on my brakes. As soon as my windshield shattered, I said to myself: ‘Let it be a deer or a dog!’ But I knew it wasn’t. I got out of the car and went over to him, screaming, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ He didn’t answer me. I remember standing over him, looking at his face. It was all so morbid.
“The state troopers came over and asked me questions. Then they said: ‘You’re being very cooperative, but you’re walking funny and you’re talking funny. Have you been drinking?’ They took me to the police barracks and gave me a test. It was an 0.08 [an illegal blood-alcohol content in most parts of the United States]. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. I had thought that nothing like this could ever happen to me. Yet, now I was facing criminally negligent homicide charges, DWAI [Driving While Ability Impaired].
“I was one month away from getting my teaching certificate. Think about how society looks upon teachers. They expect them to be morally unblemished. It was what I was working for, and now I was looking at losing it all.
“I got one year’s probation, lost my driver’s license for 19 months, was fined 250 dollars, spent a weekend in jail, did 600 hours of community service, and went through a nine-week alcohol counseling course. More than that, I remember the nights I’d wake up shaking, with the picture of that man’s face in my mind. And I had to go back and face all my friends and family. It seemed like such a struggle to continue with my life. I wasn’t sure it was worth it. I had to go back to student teaching and look at all those kids. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them knew about what I had done. And I was filled with the guilt and remorse that I felt toward that man’s family.
“The night of the accident, I had to do the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life—call my mom and tell her, ‘Mom, I killed a man in an accident. I need a ride home.’ When she got there, we just held each other and cried. I wouldn’t wish for my worst enemy to go through what I went through. People who drink and drive—that’s a problem I want to help with. When you walk away from this meeting, walk away with remembrance of us. Never forget us.”
The Panel Concludes
Patricia Johnston, coordinator of this victims panel, concluded with her own tragic experience of her alcoholic father’s fatal crash. She said: “If I could bottle the grief that alcohol causes and make it ‘one for the road,’ there would never be a need for another program like this!”
Finally, the moderator asked if anyone had questions. None were asked. But there were many with tearful eyes who said: “You’ll never hear of me drinking and driving again.”
Time alone will tell what results such panels will have in affecting the rate at which arrested offenders return to the road again to drive when drunk. But what makes the problem one of frightening proportions is the huge number, millions, of those who do take to the road impaired and who are not apprehended.
Recent reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice showed that in one recent year, nearly two million persons were arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence). But statistics also showed that for every DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) arrest made, as many as 2,000 more may go undetected in unpatrolled areas, numbers waiting to give birth to casualties.
What has created the environment that fosters such deadly and irresponsible action? Why does the war against drinking and driving continue to be waged but not won? Let us look at some of the answers.
[Picture on page 7]
Reenactment of perpetrator facing victims panel