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.”

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!”