With alcohol-related traffic deaths on the rise, December,
National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month, has even more
meaning
In May of 1990, Linda Grecu did a line of crank, got behind the wheel of her truck and slammed it into a telephone pole.
Grecu, a Morgan Hill resident, said God must have been watching over her that day. Though she badly injured her leg, requiring surgery and a two-week hospital stay, she could have been killed. She also didn’t have her three children in the truck with her, an unusual occurrence.
“My kids were always with me – always,” she said. “I can’t even think about what might have happened if they’d been in the truck with me when I hit that telephone pole. I think that was the first time I really thought about what drugs and alcohol were doing to my life.”
Stories such as Grecu’s are why December is National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month. In 2005, 16,885 people nationwide died in alcohol-related vehicle crashes, according to the California Highway Patrol. Though national statistics fell by 34 people compared to 2004, traffic fatalities related to alcohol in California rose by 112 people from 1,462 in 2004 to 1,574 in 2005.
It took Grecu, now 47, another eight years to get clean. She finally had to leave California to get away from the drug dealers and her past life. After four arrests for driving under the influence, her driver’s license has been revoked and she served two, one-year jail sentences consecutively for her DUIs. But she hasn’t touched drugs since 1998 and, though she still battles with alcoholism, she said she’ll never get behind the wheel while under the influence again.
“I tell my kids straight out that they don’t want to be like me – I tell them to look at me and see what drugs and alcohol can do to your life,” Grecu said. “I worry that they are ashamed of me. The police still know who I am and they stop me and ask me when was the last time I used. I still drink when life gets rough, but I’ve learned from my past mistakes.”
Grecu is certainly not alone. Since Nov. 9, the Gilroy Police Department made 21 DUI arrests. The Hollister Police Department made 12 DUI arrests in November alone. In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
“It’s fairly common to have people come in in an ambulance intoxicated and with motor vehicle injuries,” said Dr. Terry Blay, Chief of the Emergency Department at Kaiser Permanente Santa Teresa Medical Center. “There are really sad cases where the driver was totally drunk, crashed the car and they were fine, but their passenger got ejected through the window and is dead.”
Recently, a woman wandered into the emergency room drunk at around 7am, Blay said. She’d crashed her car into a telephone pole a few blocks away and decided to walk over and get checked out.
“Alcoholism is a problem we’re seeing across the board. It isn’t something influenced by age, sex, socio-economic groups or ethnicity,” he said. “When people get drunk, they do idiotic things like fight, become suicidal or get behind the wheel of a car. I think alcoholism is probably one of the most under-recognized problems in our society.”
In the past year, a number of DUI cases made headlines in the South Valley. In August a small SUV full of underage boys crashed on northbound U.S. 101 in Gilroy. The 19-year-old driver, who was drunk, was arrested after overturning his vehicle. One of his two 20-year-old passengers wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was ejected from the car, causing major injuries.
In February, San Benito County Superior Court Judge Steven Sanders sentenced Hollister resident Dolores Ortiz Garcia to eight months in jail after she killed a motorcyclist last year while driving drunk. She hit Lompoc resident Richard Flores, who was in town for the Hollister Independence Rally, so hard she severed one of his legs. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hollister Police Captain Bob Brookes said people should know that driving under the influence doesn’t always refer to illegal drugs or alcohol. It can mean taking over-the-counter medicine such as NyQuil that makes a driver drowsy or taking prescription pain medication with a sip of alcohol, causing an adverse reaction. Driving under the influence refers to anything that impairs the driver’s judgment.
“Think about it before you get behind the wheel of a car and you’re under the influence,” Grecu said. “It could be your last time. I was lucky. I lived. But even if you do live, sometimes the drugs and alcohol can cost you everything else. It’s not worth it.”
