Stories

Vicki’s Story

Even if I had realized sooner that the lights ahead were from a drunk driver doing 100 miles per hour in the wrong direction, there nothing I could have done to stop the seven-car collision that was about to unfold.

It was a balmy August night in 2004, around 12:45 am. My partner Dottie and I were on our way home from dinner and a night out. I was, of course, completely sober. Dottie was always adamant about that. She had lost her older brother to drunk driving back when she was a teenager.

The car barreling toward us on the freeway wasn’t actually the car that hit us. Instead, it caused a vehicle ahead of us to swerve, spin out of control, and stop right in front of us—disabled and without lights. I didn’t have time to react, and slammed right into it. Then, a second drunk driver (who also happened to be on drugs) hit us from behind. Dottie was killed instantly, sitting right beside me.

I was allowed to live, but it came at a huge cost. I had a broken femur, facial lacerations, a cracked sternum and three cracked ribs. My body had swelled beyond recognition, and the doctors had to perform extensive surgery to keep me alive and breathing. I had to be resuscitated from cardiac arrest several times. All together, I spent two hard, painful months in intensive care. Once released, I had to learn not only how to walk again, but also how to live without Dottie, my dearest, closest friend. And I’ll probably be paying the medical bills for the rest of my life. That night changed my life forever.

If you think it’s unbelievable that someone could drive so drunk as to go 100 miles per hour in the wrong direction, it’s even more unbelievable what happened to him after the crash. He was taken to the hospital, but released the same night. It took an unbearably long time to get him into court, and when the case finally came to trial, it was thrown out on a technicality. I was stunned. If he learned his lesson then, he might have lived the rest of his life a free man. Instead, barely a month later in another county, he was arrested for drunk driving again. This time, he went straight to jail to await trial.

I decided to testify at the proceedings. I brought Dottie’s ashes with me and four big volumes of medical records. When it was my turn, I spoke to him not with anger but with compassion, so he would hear me out and not shut down. I said that he, and people like him, need to wake up. People drink at a party, drive home, and call it “social drinking.” They say, “Oh, I only had one or two drinks,” and somehow think that’s OK. It’s not remotely OK. Everyone needs wake up to the consequences of their behavior.

At the end of the trial, Dottie’s killer was finally sentenced to 12 years in prison.