Drunk driving fatalities are 100 percent preventable

When it comes to drunk driving fatalities, there are a few constants that you will almost always see.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

The first is that the person killed by the drunk driver is usually just an innocent bystander minding their own business.

The second is that the drunk driver almost never gets hurt. (One of life’s cruel ironies.)

The third is that the drunk driver almost never sets out to hurt someone, not that this makes things any easier for the families of their victims.

Let me offer up some examples of the three most egregious cases that I have ever covered.

On Aug. 20, 2001, Lisa Rains was a 28-year-old Oak Grove Elementary School teacher, who had recently found out that she was pregnant.

It should have been a jubilant time for her.

Then tragedy struck.

Lester Cook was driving drunk and too fast when he struck a guard rail, lost control of his Corvette, and ran over Rains, who was looking at flowers in her front yard. His estimated blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was about twice the legal limit.

The accident happened less than half a mile from Cook’s home, and on the same road, where Cook was driving drunk nearly 32 years earlier and ran over a young boy, killing him.

In 2007, Raymond Garner, whose license had recently been suspended for drunk driving, was barreling up I-75 in his pick-up truck hauling a rickety old trailer with all his worldly belongings as he was moving from Tennessee to Kentucky. Black box data from the truck showed he had it floored when he lost control, crossed into the median and went airborne striking two vehicles.

In one vehicle, the impact killed a pregnant 25-year-old woman named Cindy Haas, and her unborn child, whom she planned to name Nathan. In another vehicle, it decapitated eight-year-old Gus Pontikis. At the time of the crash, Garner had a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit.

The case was so tragic that the accident reconstructionist broke down on the witness stand crying as he testified during the trial.

On April 13, 2016, Adam Childress had been drinking when he drove his vehicle and ran over and killed Richard Perkins, who was walking his dog along a Williamsburg sidewalk. Childress kept going and didn’t stop until he passed out and wrecked a second time going off the road and down an embankment. His blood alcohol level was nearly four times the legal limit.

By all accounts, neither Cook, Garner nor Childress are evil people, and were probably decent enough folks when sober.

I suspect that all three would gladly switch places with their victims given the chance.

Recently, London Police Officer Logan Medlock, 26, of Keavy, was on duty when an alleged drunk driver “T’boned” his police cruiser and killed him.

The man who struck him, Casey P. Byrd, 36, of Oneida, Tennessee, was charged with murder and drunk driving.

According to published reports, Byrd had a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit, and was on his way home after a watching the University of Kentucky-University of Tennessee football game. He worked at the federal prison in McCreary County.

Whether it’s proven that Byrd was drunk behind the wheel remains to be seen, but, like the others that I wrote about, I suspect he would gladly switch places with Medlock if he could. I doubt that he set out to hurt anybody when he got behind the wheel. Also, like the others, I doubt this makes much difference to Medlock’s friends and family. I know it wouldn’t to me under the circumstances.

My point is that drunk drivers almost never set out to hurt, let alone kill anyone, but many times they do.

The next time you are going to get behind the wheel after drinking please think about this column and the innocent lives lost. Then call a taxi, phone a friend, spend the night on your buddy’s couch, or climb into the back seat of your vehicle and sleep it off.

Don’t drive.

Please, please don’t take a chance on driving while intoxicated and doing something that you and others might regret for the rest of your lives.