Speakers emphasize making right choices

By KARLA POMEROY
The resounding theme for the speakers at the South Big Horn Health Coalition’s Underage Drinking and Impaired Driving Prevention Presentation was that the choices you make impact not just yourself but others, family members, friends and even emergency responders.
Big Horn County Health Coalition Director Chad Lindsay of Lovell described a warm spring day in May 1976 in which a drunk driver killed his father when he was 4 years old.
“I brought along my son Quinn to show you how old I was when the choice of another person impacted my life and my family’s life forever,” Lindsay said.
He said that on that May afternoon a drunk driver struck his father while his father was taking a drive on his motorcycle.
Lindsay said despite the loss he has had a “great life.” He said since he was so young there is little he remembers about his father.
“I wish he would have been there to see some of the things I got to do … We missed out on seeing him and getting to know him. I’m sad for that loss of what could have been,” Lindsay said.
“I want you to think about your choices in your life. Somebody’s choice made it so I didn’t know my dad and that my dad doesn’t get to see his grandkids,” Lindsay said.
He said people have a right to make their own choices. “But when your decision starts impacting others that’s when I think we need to think about our choices. All of our choices impact somebody else. I guarantee you there’s somebody out there who cares a lot about you.”
Before breaking for lunch and then visiting the Life Flight helicopter, Blackhawk helicopter and other booths at the fairgrounds, the students heard from Katrina Jares, whose brother JJ died in a drunk-driving crash in November 2007.
Katrina said her brother was two months from his 22nd birthday when he died. She said Thanksgiving day she and her boyfriend went to Lander to spend the holiday with his family. When she arrived back in Basin, JJ had left to visit friends.
She said from what the family was told, JJ had been to a bar and to a party and had a few drinks.
“At some point he made the decision to drive home. Why? We will never know,” Jares said. She said his friends apologized to the family wondering what they could have done differently.
“They couldn’t have changed anything. They offered him a ride home and being his stubborn self he chose to go ahead and drive,” Jares said.
About 3 a.m., Jares said her brother’s pickup left the road near the radio station, into a ravine and rolled several times. He was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the pickup, dying instantaneously from the injuries.
“I am here today to tell you that that doesn’t have to happen to any of you. I’m here to beg you to please, please, make the decision for yourself not to ever, ever drink and drive,” Jares said.
She encouraged the students to help each other and not to get into a vehicle with someone who has been drinking.
Jares said JJ was a member of search and rescue and the fire department and his fellow firefighters and S&R members were the ones that had to respond to the crash site.
“I have never seen so many grown men cry in my life. I have never felt that kind of emotion and I hope I never do again. I hope that none of you ever have to go through that beit a family member or a friend. And I hope that your families don’t have to go through that with you,” Jares said.
She said she hopes her story and the presentation will make a difference, adding that a few years ago her sister was one of the “victims” in the mock crash scene. “That didn’t stop my brother from drinking and driving. I hope that if anything you take home today something that will make you stop and think,” she said. “Your family has to deal with it, the community has to deal with it … the emergency workers have to deal with it.”