A victim of drunken driving who underwent more than 25 surgeries told his story Thursday evening in a presentation that brought tears to the eyes of some of those present at KCKCC-TEC.
The survivor, who lives in another Kansas county, was only 25 years old when his car was T-boned, leaving him in the hospital with serious injuries for months and in recovery for years. His parents had to take care of him at home after the hospitalization.
“It’s just so much toll on one family,” Jeff, the survivor of the crash, said. “I wouldn’t want anyone affected like I was.”
Jeff said the drunken driver was lucky that Jeff didn’t die and the driver didn’t have to live with that guilt. And he said what happened was 100 percent preventable. It happened “all because some guy couldn’t take a cab,” according to an officer’s comment in a video shown at the event.
Jeff had not done anything wrong while driving, but was hit by a drunken driver going over 100 mph in a crash in 2015 that changed his life. He had been applying for medical school, but had to put his dreams on hold for years. He said he still wants to be a doctor.
Victims of drunken driving on Thursday faced a roomful of around 60 people who were ordered by a court to be there at the program at KCKCC-TEC because of violations. Two survivors made an emotionally charged appeal to them not to drink and drive. It was part of a program by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office and Wyandotte County courts, the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers and KCKCC.
A second victim, Jan, who lives in another Kansas county, described the shock and sadness she felt when she got the call in the 1980s that her daughter had been killed by a drunken driver in Texas. It was the driver’s seventh driving-while-intoxicated violation.
“I’ll never, ever forget that phone call, I never thought we would ever have to bury one of the kids,” she said. She was never able again to do any mother-daughter activities with her daughter. Her daughter, who had a child, was never able to see the child grow up, play football and graduate.
She added she was not there to criticize anyone, as she knows everyone makes mistakes, but she just wanted them to understand there are consequences to drinking and driving, and there are lives lost because of those actions.
“We’re serving a lifetime sentence,” she said about the survivors of the victims of drinking and driving. “It will never be over for us.”
She urged the audience to plan ahead, have a designated driver, take a cab or call someone for a ride.
“It’s 100 percent preventable,” she said.
MADD’s Victim Impact Panel has been used successfully in other areas, and was recently brought to Wyandotte County, according to Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree.
“The thing about DUIs is it ranges from the educated to the uneducated, from 1st Street to 142nd Street,” Dupree said.
There’s no crime in drinking, but authorities are just warning people not to drink and drive, he added. He believes this MADD program can help bring about a change.
“Yes, it makes a difference,” he said about the MADD program of presenting the survivors’ stories. Some of those who are drinking and driving, or drinking and texting, are doing it without giving it much thought and do not think it is important.
“These real-life stories that are told of survivors who were hit and sometimes dismembered and greatly negatively affected by drinking and driving is an education to the unconscionable act that many of these people don’t even think about when doing it,” he said.
Many people attending these classes do not want to have crashes, but they just don’t think about drinking and driving, he said.
“Seeing the real-life stories corrects some of these first-time offenders and preferably causes them not to become the fifth, sixth and 12th-time offender,” Dupree said.
“The fact that Mothers Against Drunk Driving take out of their time to find survivors of these types of crimes and volunteers who have not only been in a situation where they were negatively affected but also have lost loved ones to drunk drivers, and they have the courage to stand in front of these folks and to enlighten them of the reality of what their actions do, is beyond commendable,” Dupree said. “They’re not prosecutors, not judges, not law enforcement, they’re simply community members who are saying any life that is lost, any survivor who has to go through what they have to go through, it affects us all.”