Telling tragic tales

Friday, November 14, 2008

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DUI victims and offenders tell their stories at a MADD-sponsored panel; other DUI offenders must listen.

By Joe Wisinski
BayNews9.com executive producer

Hillsborough County owns a distinction that residents and government leaders no doubt wish it didn't.

The county has the second highest incidence of drinking and driving fatalities and injuries in Florida.

Partly because of the enormity of the drinking and driving problem in Hillsborough, anyone in the county convicted of driving under the

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influence has to attend a victim impact panel sponsored by MADD. At the panels, victims of drinking and driving crashes and DUI offenders tell how the accidents have changed their lives.

The panels humanize the consequences of impaired driving and give victims an opportunity to heal their emotional wounds by sharing their stories.

On Jan. 12, three DUI victims and three offenders told their stories for two hours at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, as 200 DUI offenders listened.

Here are the stories of two victims and an offender.

"I didn't deserve this"

The date was Jan. 27, 2001, the day before Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium. Tampa Bay was hyped for the big game.

On that Saturday, 41-year-old Robin Powell was riding on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa. She rode in the back seat, with her 17-year-old son driving and a friend beside him.

Robin Powell was paralyzed after being hit by a drinking driver; it took two years for her to learn to walk again.

The time was just 11:45 a.m., but a young woman was already under the influence of alcohol. She was driving on the opposite side of the road from Powell and crossed the center lane, hitting Powell's car head on.

The crash shifted the vertebrae in Powell's neck, damaging her spinal cord and paralyzing her from the shoulders down. Doctors warned Powell's family there was small likelihood that she would recover from the paralysis.

Powell wouldn't leave the hospital for more than 100 days. When she went home on May 10, she was a quadriplegic.

It took a year of rehabilitation for Powell to be able to hold a fork or spoon. After two years she could walk again.

She still can't raise her arms above shoulder level.

"I wish I knew what it was like to shampoo my own hair," she told the DUI offenders. "And someone has to help me get dressed seven days a week. I have to live my life like this because someone chose to drink and get behind the wheel."

Powell said her Christian faith is important to her and she maintains her faith in God. But she had emotional words for the DUI offenders.

"I'm not here to judge you," she told them. "But I didn't deserve this. I ask you, I beg you, not to do this again."

"How do you tell a family you're sorry for killing their daughter?"

John Templeton was just 19 years old on Nov. 22, 2002. He planned to meet friends in Ybor City that night, but almost didn't go because he knew there wasn't much in Ybor for someone too young to legally drink. But on an impulse he decided to go.

Despite his age, a bartender gave him a wristband identifying him as 21. He drank several beers and shots.

"The next thing I knew I woke up at St. Joseph's Hospital, handcuffed to a gurney," Templeton said. "I had no idea why I was there, but two cops were looking at me like they wanted to kill me."

The police told Templeton he had been driving northbound in the southbound lanes of Interstate 275 and hit 18-year-old Julie Buckner of Lutz head on. Buckner died instantly.

"All I could do was lay there and cry," Templeton said. "All I could do was cry."

Buckner's parents were on a cruise when they got the word that their daughter had died.

"How do you tell a family you're sorry for killing their daughter?" Templeton asked during his statement to the DUI offenders. "I cheated them out of the chance to hug their daughter and say goodbye."

Templeton faced a possible 15 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in February 2004 and, thanks partially to pleas for leniency from some members of Buckner's family, was sentenced to two years. He served a year, followed by two years of house arrest.

Templeton said he thought about killing himself after the accident.

More Information
	Click here for MADD's statement about victim impact panels. Click here to see the penalties DUI drivers in Florida may receive. Click here to read about what the city of Largo is doing about DUI drivers.

"I remember thinking, 'There's a funeral going on because of something I did,' " Templeton said. "It's hard to go on with your life knowing a family is going on without their daughter."

Templeton said he thinks about Buckner, who he never met, every day.

"I want you to know what it's like to wake up, or be brushing your teeth, and be thinking 'What would Julie be doing now?' " Templeton told the DUI offenders. "Not a day goes by that I don't think 'What would she be doing? Would she have a child?' "

Templeton said that before the accident he had an "it only happens to the other guy" attitude about DUI.

"I knew that people get killed by drinking drivers," he said. "I just didn't think it could happen to me. With the pain that it causes so many people, it's not worth it to drink and drive."

"We'll always have each other"

Linda Unfried's parents celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary with a party on Oct. 28, 1983. Unfried and her sister, Josie DiStefano Palomino, marveled at the longevity of their parents' marriage. Both sisters had been divorced while still young.

Linda Unfried lost her sister to a drunk driver on the night of their parents' 55th anniversary party.

"Neither of us will celebrate 55 years of marriage," Unfried remembers telling her sister. "But we'll always have each other."

Just two hours later, a 17-year-old with a suspended license was driving 80 mph on Waters Avenue in Tampa. His blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit when he hit Palomino, who was 41. She died from a broken neck.

"It's so hard to come here," Unfried told the DUI offenders. "We don't like coming here. Just like you, we'd rather be somewhere else tonight. We'd rather be home with our families. Our complete families. But that's not possible."

More than 20 years later, Unfried still cries when talking about her late sister.

"I'm not going to do it again"

"We're here in the hope that something we might say will make a difference in your life," Unfried said. "We hope after we share our stories you will have a different attitude about drinking and driving."

Do the DUI offenders walk away with a different attitude? Does listening to how drinking and driving has devastated others keep those convicted of DUI from drinking and driving again?

The answer is a qualified "maybe."

A DUI offender who wanted to be known just as Ira was ordered to attend the panel as part of having his DUI charge reduced to reckless driving. He said he was an alcoholic, but his accident - driving through a fence at Tampa International Airport - was the turning point in his life.

"It was the final nail in the coffin," Ira said.

He's now attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has been sober for more than three months.

"I don't plan on ever drinking again," he said.

But one woman who attended an earlier panel later killed two people on the Howard Frankland Bridge while driving under the influence. She was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

But for other DUI offenders, listening to others talk about the pain caused by DUI may be just what they need to swear off drinking and driving for life.

"Trust me," one of the DUI offenders said after listening to the tragic stories. "I'm not going to do it again."