The Stephen Dewart Story
Disasters strike our world constantly, impacting people physically, mentally, financially, and socially. Rarely can we control natural disasters; yet we often prepare for them diligently, as if to say with confidence, “We’re ready.”
All too often, however, we encounter man-made disasters. While these events are generally controllable, rarely can we prepare for their consequences. They usually happen in a split second—never enough time to gather our defenses.
Indeed. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday, just past noon. Downtown Chicago felt alive and well—and so did I. A group of us was gathered on the sidewalk, a safe and secure refuge from the passing automobiles filling the roads around us. Then, in the blink of an eye, our cocoon exploded.
Instantly, I saw a white truck barreling into me. I heard its motor accelerate. I recall thinking in a flash, “Why won’t it slow down?” A Ford F150 pickup was about to land on the sidewalk and strike me and six other bystanders. The driver, an on-duty City of Chicago trash collector, was intoxicated at the time of impact; police even found an open bottle of brandy in the city truck he drove.
The horror of seeing, hearing, and feeling such doom was itself toxic. Thankfully, we all survived, but it hurts me to posit that none of us will ever be the same again. I sustained fractures in my right leg, which required surgery to implant a permanent titanium rod. Four of my vertebrae were broken. I had numerous abrasions across my body.
The impact to my life has been indescribable. Four months later, I continue to encounter pain daily. I still require intense physical rehabilitation. A therapist works with me weekly on my post-traumatic stress. I have missed hundreds of hours of work, and was forced to defer my admission to law school until fall 2012. My wife, family, and friends have become my caretakers in many capacities since that day. I’m certain they must deal with their own issues because of that driver’s decision to drive while drunk.
And that’s just my story. Each of the other victims has his or her own, too. Make no mistake, the victims of which I speak I are not merely those who felt the truck that day. They’re also the spouses, mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, friends, peers. In crashing a car into someone, an intoxicated driver declares war on that individual’s entire livelihood.
Drunk driving truly epitomizes the manufactured violence that impacts its victims for the rest of their lives. It is a selfish, cowardly act that destroys, divides, confuses, and haunts. It’s not a heat-of-the-moment infliction. It’s not a crime of passion. It’s a rare case of an entirely premeditated, completely preventable incident. One need only choose not to drive. How simple.
I’ll admit: I was among the “most of us” who hear drunk-driving stories from the outside. We pause to contemplate the sadness, and move on. But on May 21, 2011, I became, forever more, an insider.
