On a beautiful Friday morning, on the verge of prom and graduation, students at Redmond High School (RHS) sat in stunned silence as they heard stories of young people who made an awful mistake to drink and drive or to ride in a car with a driver who’d been drinking.
“Think About It” was the theme of an assembly to raise DUI awareness. Students heard from adults who lost precious children in alcohol-related crashes. They also heard from a 2003 RHS grad who’s in jail because he killed a friend while driving drunk.
At this celebratory time of year, Redmond Police Officer Sande English begged students “not to become another statistic.”
Every year in early summer, the media reports details of tragic accidents involving students who took partying to a dangerous level.
“They talk about the person who was getting ready to embark upon life after high school … and how senseless it all was. The makeshift memorial gets set up, with flowers and stuffed animals. You see the family and friends crying. It is senseless and completely preventable.”
As a police officer, said English, “there’s nothing worse in my profession than to knock on a door at three in the morning,” to tell a mom or dad that their son or daughter has died in an accident involving drugs or alcohol.
“Their heart starts to pound, they can’t breathe … they ask ‘Officer, why are you here?’ Those words don’t come easy. What do you say?”
English began to weep. She told students she has been on both sides of that nightmarish scenario.
“I’ve delivered the message and I’ve been on the receiving end of it,” she said.
Her 19-year-old son Scott was killed by a 16-year-old driver with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.15.
She introduced a video made by Patrick Hirsch of Redmond City Television, featuring an interview with Tyler Brown, the RHS alumnus who is serving a five-year sentence at the penetentiary in Monroe.
Brown remembered almost nothing about the night of July 30, 2006, when he lost control of his car and crashed into a guard rail at 70 or 80 mph. A female passenger, his friend Emily Smith, was partly ejected through the windshield and died at the scene. She was 22 years old, going into her senior year at Western Washington University.
“Everything I know from the accident is from witness statements,” said Brown. “I left a bar after four hours of drinking. …. That’s what the court papers say. I have no memory.”
His blood-alcohol concentration that night was 0.24.
Brown described Smith as a “caring, loving, girl who went to church with her family.”
He said he can never forgive himself for what he did: “Every day of my life, I question why she died instead of me.” He’s now 23 years old and will be almost 26 when he is freed from prison.
“If I can help one kid not end up here, not get their first DUI, not to drink … not to get in the car …” was the reason he agreed to be interviewed.
RHS security guard George Jannusch, a beloved campus figure who is retiring at the end of this school year, spoke about the night in 1988 when his daughter Keri Lynn “chose to get into a car with a person not drunk, but impaired.”
That driver drank only two beers but tried to negotiate a corner at 65 mph in a posted 25 mph zone. He hit a telephone pole and traveled another 40 feet into Lake Sammamish. He survived, was tried as a juvenile and served six months.
Keri Lynn died.
“I’ve spoken about this for 21 years. It doesn’t get easier,” Jannusch said, momentarily breaking down. Every Christmas, every time Keri Lynn’s birthday or the anniversary of her death rolls around, he relives the aching memory.
“We’re not lecturing but pray that you will think,” Jannusch concluded. “Give yourself an out. Call a cab, call your parents. So what if you get grounded? You’re alive.”
RHS drug and alcohol counselor Tena Youngberg shared her personal story, as well. When she was seven years old, her mom suffered permanent brain damage when her dad drove drunk and crashed their car.
“We all have a choice,” said Youngberg. “Nobody goes out with the intention of hurting or killing someone,” yet it happens.
Students were released from the assembly with the request to spend the second class period reflecting on what they had heard and seen, including the wrecked car in which Emily Smith lost her life, just as her life was supposed to begin.
