The Story of How a Drunk Driver Destroyed Lives

Imagine you and a couple of your friends are on your way home from a birthday party. It is early in the morning and everybody is laid back and tired. All of a sudden, an SUV crashes into the car you're in and life changes forever. In the driver seat you see that one of your friends is dead, so is another in the back and others are badly injured. Paramedics rush to rescue you from the vehicle, but the doors are jammed and so are you. Fire starts to spark, creeping closer to your eyes, nose, ears and hair. Imagine fire making its way into your skin. Rescuers watch the fire attack, declaring you dead. Yet there is hope at the end of the tunnel, you're saved. The door is broken down, the fire is extinguished and the first think you ask, the paramedic holding you, is "Am I going to die?" I would like to say that this is a scene from a movie I watched or the work of my imagination. But as life would have it, this story is as real as drunk driving fatalities go. A story that proves that not all people who are in involved in alcohol related accidents die. On the whole, however, they do lose their lives.

The horrific situation written above has been experienced by a beautiful young woman named Jacqueline Saburido on September 19, 1999. Jacqueline Saburido, a 20-year-old college student, and her friends were hit by an 18-year-old high school student, Reggie Stephey. Reggie Stephey had been drinking with his buddies that night. Two of Jacqui's friends lost their lives, two others were injured and Jacqui herself had 3rd degree burns on 60 percent on her whole body. That one accident led to the disfiguration of her face, having her fingers amputated, causing her to lose most of her vision and painfully putting her through more then 50 surgical operations in the last couple of years. Treatment for Jacqui still continues. With the help of determined doctors and a loving father Jacqui has managed to use her hands again, rebuilt her left eyelid and cornea in order to improve her vision. Yet Jacqui is far from how her friends in Venezuela remember her - A slim beauty, at 5ft 4 inches with smooth brown hair and brown eyes. While Jacqui's life hit a sudden blow, Stephey Reggie was sentenced to seven years in prison and was fined to pay $20,000.

The life of Jacqueline Saburido and others, whose lives have been destroyed due to drunk driving, contributes largely to the more effective headline from the Taxes Department of Transportation "Not everyone who gets hit by a drunk driver dies." This powerful headline was posted and shown on TV around the country with Jacqueline Saburido's post accident picture as the main focus and a small before-accident picture in the lover right corner. The idea for the ad campaign was generated after a focus group of 15 to 20-year-olds were asked what would invoke them to think before drinking and driving.

The Response was clear, "... What they said was, 'You have to show us real consequences- you have to show us things that are graphic, we don't get subtle.' When we heard that from them, we realized that we had maybe soft-peddled the issue before," said Janet Lea - Vice president of Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing. A simple yet big reality check for drivers, the headline with the image, awakens the fear of losing more then everything in the hearts of drivers that take chances. It probes a person to realize that there are things worse than death. Being made fun of how you look like, being called a "monster," having to give your ambitions the back seat and going through pain that feels "like a thousand needles" is what drunk driving can cause (Jacqueline Saburido).

The taxes Department of Transportation campaign installs in our minds the ugly truth that what happened to Jacqui can happen to us and if drunk driving continues, chances are it will. According to the Nation Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), about three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol - related crash at some times in their lives. In 2002, an estimated 17, 419 people died of alcohol-related traffic crashes, an average of one death every 30 minutes (NHTSA). In 2001, more than half a million people were injured approximately every 2 minutes. These statistics clearly show how safe our roads are.

Here are some recent statistics

-In 2005, 48 children age 14 years and younger who were killed as pedestrians or pedalcyclists were struck by impaired drivers

-More than half of the 414 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-related crashes during 2005 were riding with the drinking driver.

-In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics (Department of Justice 2005). That's less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.

-During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39% of all traffic-related deaths.

-Young men ages 18 to 20 (under the legal drinking age) reported driving while impaired more frequently than any other age group.

(Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC)
< http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm>

Drivers that drink and drive never realized the danger they bring to the roads. Most people reassure themselves that nothing will happen to them, or that they will take extra precautions. Furthermore, drunk drivers never go far enough to think about the people they might hurt. Unfortunately people do get hurt. Some lose their lives: others are not so lucky and are left with life scaring emotional and physical disabilities, just like Jacqui's.

Now imagine yourself in Jacqueline Saburido's place. Imagine being deprived of your right to live life on your own terms, imagine being guilty of depriving someone else's dreams and hopes. Obviously it is a very heart piercing thought to even think that you, your friend or a family member could have been in Jacqui's place. Nevertheless if this thought would only stop us when we are about to do things that have viscous outcomes, this world would be a little safer. So the next time you and your friends decide to have a little fun, make sure that there is a sober driver among you. Drunk driving not only can snatch lives away, it can cause lives to take unbearable turns. Turns which allow a person to live but steals his or her ability to enjoy and fulfill that life to the fullest, to call it normal or have any control over it.

If what I have written here does not convince you and if you have the heart to bare the picture - Goggle or Yahoo Jacqueline Saburido's name; you will find pictures of a brave girl that is paying for someone else's stupidity.

Don't Drink and Drive, Period.