Matt Hazard

We hear about it all the time, from the near arrest stories to the conflicting views on the real dangers of drinking and driving.  Although we are all aware of the repercussions getting an impaired charge can bring, we continuously hear about people who find it just too convenient to grab their keys and drive home.  It has become such an unfortunate common scenario in society, even I was generally not afraid to get into a vehicle with someone who would probably blow over the legal limit.  And this all changed for me when I got that phone call over the weekend.

I was helping move a friend on Saturday morning when my brother called me.  He told me one of our brothers was in the hospital – he wrecked his truck just outside the city and was taken in via ambulance, along with two other passengers.  He had passed out drunk behind the wheel and driven off the road into a ditch.

Police, fire trucks and ambulances were all on scene.  Luckily, all three of them were banged up, but alive.  This exact scenario is what no one ever thinks about when driving drunk.  I’ve heard countless people say they can drive fine while “impaired”.  Everyone expects it to be easy to stay between the lines and maintain the legal speed limit, but in reality it’s all of the small distractions that can add up, and ultimately you can’t prepare for falling asleep behind the wheel.

This doesn’t make my brother a bad person.  This makes him a very unfortunate individual who made an even worse decision, and is now going to have to suffer the consequences.  The only positive element that came of his situation is that no one died.  That ditch could have been a semi, or an oncoming car with passengers.  My entire family is shook, and we’re all viewing the entire concept in a whole new light.  Life really gets placed under the microscope when a situation like this comes walking into your own backyard.

Impaired accidents happen all the time, yet no one ever expects it to happen to them. I know this probably won’t mean much coming from me, but I hope this at least serves as a reminder that this problem is all too real.  Life didn’t mean a whole lot to me until I realized how close I came to losing someone.  Maybe sometimes it takes a scene like this to open our eyes and not take things for granted.  I don’t exactly know how they all survived the crash, whether it be just dumb luck or Divine intervention, but a little faith may have just been restored.