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Nobody drives drunk with the intention of doing harm to others or to themselves. Instead, they tend to overestimate their tolerance and underestimate the danger. You can’t understand the consequences if you’ve always been lucky.
I was convicted of the crime of Felony D.U.I. Involving Death or Injury and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment in the Mississippi Department of Corrections, of which I served eleven years. What I have to offer to the conversation about drunk driving as an ex-convict of this offense is the dark side most of you don’t believe can happen to you. It can. It does.
In 2004, the year I was convicted, drunk driving deaths totaled 13,099 people. As of 2014, that number has dropped to 9,967 according to M.A.D.D. . That drop is promising and undoubtedly due to education and DUI awareness, as well as automobiles that are generally safer.
But it is not my purpose to attempt to parse the factors leading to the decline of DUI-related deaths, nor is it my intention to give a rote speech about the dangers of drinking and driving. I have given this great consideration and decided that the best way to approach this subject is to simply tell my story, in my own words, and let the reader take from it what they may.
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Around September 10th, 2002, I quit a lucrative job as a casino dealer/games instructor on a day-cruise ship in Texas. I had been married to Nikki—also a table-games dealer—for roughly a year and a half at the time. We decided that lifestyle wasn’t for us; the money was good but the hours were long, and we decided it was time for us to return to a more 9-to-5 existence.
This was when we decided to move back to Mississippi and look for jobs.
In September, the tourist season is drawing to a close and jobs are hard to find as casinos are preparing for the winter layoff; our timing couldn’t have been worse. Obviously, neither of us was good at planning ahead. Yes, we left employment in Texas to go to Mississippi with no job offer. We were young and dumb.
After several months of living on the edge with all of the stress and marital fights that come with it, Nikki found a job at the very casino where I had learned to deal years earlier. The shift manager was an old friend and promised me that as soon as the New Year was passed, he would hire me as well, but he couldn’t do it right away because they were laying people off. Nikki’s job was a favor he didn’t have to grant, and I was certainly grateful, although still frustrated, being out of work for so long.
Nikki and I immediately got an apartment in anticipation of her first check, borrowing $500 dollars from my mother to cover the deposit. We were getting back to normal; feeling comfortable for the first time in months, though we still weren’t out of the woods.
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On the evening of December 5th, 2002, I took Nikki to work at 5 p.m. and decided to meet an old friend for a drink at a club in Biloxi we both frequented once upon a time. When I arrived, he called and informed me that he was unable to make it, because he couldn’t find a babysitter for his (then) three-year-old daughter. But I was ready to party, and the club was having a special; $2 drink-’til-you-drop night. You paid two dollars at the door and got a wristband that entitled you to purchase any type of drink…top-shelf even…for two dollars per drink. For me at that moment, this seemed to be a godsend. I had exactly $38 dollars to my name and had planned to drink a few Budweisers. But with that wristband, the discounted price of a Bud would allow me to also buy me a shot of Grey Goose vodka. That is what I did. Didn’t think twice. I had been stressed, and this was my night.
Nikki didn’t realize I had decided to go out that night. At approximately 12:40 am, she called our cell from work and told me she would be ready to leave in about an hour. I was roughly a 40-minute drive away, so I decided to have one more and go. I remember dancing, talking to the DJ, leaving the club, getting in my truck…and nothing.
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What I’m about to relate now is what I have pieced together through police reports, trial testimony, newspaper stories, and my own fractured memories.
I blacked out at the wheel.
I think I actually laid down across the front seat of our truck, thinking I was still in the parking lot of the club. But I wasn’t. I was driving down Highway 90 at 45 mph. How I managed to make it approximately two miles, completely asleep and non-responsive, I will never know. The road itself was mostly straight, but there were intersections, slight curves, road-signs, embankments…and it was 1am, so the road was empty. But how did that truck keep going?
A woman who saw my erratic driving and followed me (and would later testify at my trial…remember, this was 2002, before cellphones became ubiquitous…she didn’t have one so followed) said my truck was all over the road, pin-balling its way down the highway. Driving up on the median, rebounding, hitting the curb on the other side…but just kept going. For two miles.
At approximately 1:19 am, on December 6th, 2002, four days before my 27th birthday, I was violently thrown to the floorboard of my Ford Explorer, my face smashed into a hard-plastic six-pack cooler sitting in the passenger-side floorboard. A hole was punched through my lower-lip when the impact occurred, and my jaw swelled in a frightening manner.
I thought my jaw was broken. I was scared.
When I pulled myself up into the driver’s seat, I glanced around in terror. I remember looking out the windshield and saw nothing in front of me. I looked out of the passenger side windows and again saw empty highway. I jerked my head to the rear, over my right shoulder and looked out of the back windows of my SUV.
I saw nothing but black highway.
Then, I looked out of the drivers-door window and saw a light-pole touching my side-view mirror. I thought, “Jesus…I hit a light-pole”. It was 1:30 in the morning, the highway was empty, and my face was pouring blood. I knew I was drunk and in a lot of trouble. I remember, I kept trying to suck the blood up that was pouring from my face…but I couldn’t. There was no suction because there was a hole in my face below my lower lip. Blood kept pouring like an open faucet.
I decided I needed to get to the hospital. I knew I was going to get arrested, but I was scared. I tried to start the truck. I was in a semi-blackout, terrified, not comprehending. I turned the key, and…nothing. Not even a slight grind from the starter. I looked around at the dashboard…all the lights were on. The instrument cluster was still lit up. So I knew the battery was still good. Had to be. But the truck wouldn’t start. I couldn’t figure out why…and just as I was about to get out of the truck and wait for the police, it occurred to me.
The truck’s transmission was still in “Drive”, and the truck had stalled. I was trying to start it in “Drive”. I slapped the gear-lever into park, turned the key, and that truck fired right up. So I drove to the hospital; I knew was close.
I never even realized that 50 feet behind me and ten feet below me, a 19-year-old exchange-student from Ireland was dying of a badly fractured skull. I hadn’t hit a light-pole. I had rear-ended a Honda Accord stopped at a stoplight and killed the young woman sitting in the back seat.
I was arrested at the hospital when I arrived. I woke up in a holding cell, called my poor wife, and was told I had killed someone. My immediate reaction was, “NO I DIDN’T.” What are you TALKING about? I didn’t KILL anyone…no.
But I did.
I killed a 19-year-old woman. I destroyed her family. Her mother, her father, her brother…I tore their family apart.
But it didn’t end there. I tore my own family apart. I tore my friends apart. I tore everything apart. All because I thought I could handle it. All because I couldn’t conceive of *me* becoming one of those statistics. Yes, I woke up to a nightmare most of you cannot imagine, but that is absolutely nothing compared to the lives I ripped apart.
So I say to you…if you’re drunk, and you have no other way home, can’t afford a cab, you only had a few…please, please…sleep in the bloody grass. GO to jail for public drunk. Please…do not drive.
Believe me…you do not want killing someone on your conscience.
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Related by author Michael J. Kramm
Related posts by other authors on The Good Men Project:
“I Killed a Man.” Drunk Driver Makes YouTube Confessional Video to do the Honorable Thing
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Photo credit: Flickr/Rian Castillo
Thank you for the courage to share this, Michael. In recovery myself, I can only thank God the consequences of my boozing weren’t as severe as yours. I want to repost on my blogs as a warning, as you so strongly impress, that “it’ll never happen” to us.
Christopher, I am Michael’s editor. Thank you for reading. Feel free to share an intro of this story on your blog—perhaps the first two paragraphs—with “[Click to read the full story.]” linked back to this page.