On Monday, September 20, 2010, we were sitting in the living room watching Swamp People, one of my son Joey’s favorite shows. He was a mama’s boy and a gentle giant at six foot three.
Joey was a senior at Piqua High School and planned to go on a farm science trip with friends the next day. I went to bed early because I had to be up at 3 a.m. for my nursing shift, so I told my boys goodnight and that I loved them. As I walked away, Joey said, “I love you too, Mom.”
The next morning a friend asked to take Joey’s place on the trip. My husband Ron was off work and decided to drive to Dayton with Joey to pick up a riding lawn mower, something Joey would have turned into a demolition derby project, one of his favorite hobbies.
At 1:45 p.m., I received a call from my sister Penny, a State Trooper. She never called me at work. She told me to meet her at the BMV in Troy. When I arrived, Penny and two other troopers were waiting, unable to look at me. I remember asking, “Why does my heart tell my feet to run?”
Penny finally told me there had been a serious crash involving Ron and Joey. Ron had been Care Flighted, and they did not know if he would survive. Then she told me my son Joey was gone.
How do you go from kissing your child goodnight to being told you will never see them again? Joey was dead.
That same morning, a woman named Leanne had bought compressed air at Meijer, inhaled it in the parking lot, and then chose to drive. Impaired, she crossed the center line on State Route 718 and hit our truck head on at nearly 80 miles per hour.
Joey tried to avoid her by steering into the ditch, but she struck them driver-to-driver. The impact tore the truck apart. Joey was ejected, broke his neck, and died instantly. Ron survived, but with lasting injuries, including multiple fractures to his back.
There was no hospital goodbye, no final moment. Joey’s senior year never came. No prom. No graduation. A funeral 70 years too soon.
I kissed my son goodbye and walked away knowing nothing could fix what had happened. The smile that lit up every room, the laugh that brightened every day, the mama’s boy who gave the best hugs, the big brother to Brian, gone in an instant.
Our family will never be the same. A piece of each of us died with him. His death was completely preventable. If Leanne had simply taken the compressed air home, she would not have been impaired. She spent only an hour in a holding cell before being released. She died later that year from a drug overdose.
The HALT Drunk Driving Law, passed by Congress in 2021 with bipartisan support, requires new vehicles to include technology that can detect and stop impaired driving before it begins. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates it will save more than 10,000 lives every year. Joey would have been one of those lives saved.
Yet more than four years later, the federal government has missed multiple deadlines to implement this law. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) continues to question why sober drivers should have impaired-driving prevention technology in their vehicles.
Joey wasn’t impaired when the crash took his life and that’s exactly why this technology matters. Impaired driving threatens everyone on the road. The only ones who need to worry about this law are impaired drivers. The technology exists. The solutions are ready.
I urge my fellow Ohioans to contact lawmakers and tell them to support the HALT Law and demand its implementation.
This is not about politics. It is about preventing families from experiencing the heartbreak that shattered ours. Every day of delay risks another preventable tragedy. Every day risks another family losing their Joey.
