IMPACT OF IMPAIRED DRIVING GOES BEYOND VICTIMS

Eric Todd can remember the skid marks through the median's grass,
though the memory is five years old.

He also remembers the beer bottle embedded in the young man's hand
from the force of a sideways crash into a tree, despite that memory
being at least a decade old.

Todd is a paramedic, and currently serves as a platoon supervisor
with Superior North EMS.

In 26 years he's been to many, many vehicle crashes that lead to
death and injury. Many of those involved booze or drugs.

Over the last 26 years, he's seen the crashes decline as tougher
penalties and seat-belt laws came into place.

It's often not apparent at the crash scene that alcohol or drugs were
involved, but comes out later during the police investigation, Todd
said after the ribbon cutting for Mothers Against Drunk Driving's
annual holiday season campaign against impaired driving.

But sometimes it's obvious, like the crash near Boulevard Lake that
embedded the beer bottle into the passenger's hand. That young person
died while the others in the vehicle lived.

In another impaired driving case a block from the Community
Auditorium, a driver missed a turn and drove over a grassy median,
striking two young women and killing one.

The routine steps they take at a crash scene help paramedics deal
with the carnage they see. The support network within the ambulance
service helps as well, he said.

But it's tough when you're at the hospital filling out paperwork and
family members of crash victims arrive, terribly upset.

"That's the hardest part," said Todd. "The family are left to deal with this."

Lesley Read, president of the local MADD chapter, was one of those
family members five years ago.

Her 29-year-old daughter, five months pregnant with her own second
daughter, was killed by an impaired driver two days before Christmas.

Her daughter was a lab technician at the hospital, so she knew
ambulance drivers, police, and lab staff who do autopsies on crash victims.

The doctor she worked with had to do the autopsy on her, said Read.

"We call it the rippling effect," Read said, explaining it's not only
family but friends and co-workers of both victims and drunk drivers
who are hurt.

"The community at large is affected."

Police officers, paramedics and drivers of buses, taxis, limousines
and even a hearse were on hand with Read on Thursday to open the
annual Project Red Ribbon - Tie One on for Safety campaign.

She's asking residents to tie one of the red MADD ribbons to an
antenna or side mirror as a reminder to drive sober.

The campaign runs until the end of the first week in January, and
ribbons are available at police, fire, ambulance and various
transportation services.

"Drinking and driving is a choice," said Read. "You can choose to go
home by limousine, designated driver, taxi or bus. Or, you can drink
and drive and quite likely you or someone you love is going to go
home in a police car, ambulance or with a fire truck involved."