Willie W. Bonvillain
November 20, 2013
Patterson still alive after hard-fought victory
November 27, 2013
On May 29, 1997, Mary Kay Tracy received the worst news a parent can receive.
After attending church with her husband (who celebrated his birthday on the day), Tracy picked up her ringing phone and was told by a Louisiana State Trooper that her daughter was in an automobile accident.
After the initial contact, troopers soon arrived at the mother’s doorstep and shared the numbing news.
“He walked into my house and he looked at me and he said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but your daughter is dead.’ I thought I could handle that news, but I couldn’t. My body went into a mode where I could not see, I could not hear and I could not move. … The officer continued to speak to my husband, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. … I was gone. I was devastated.”
As troopers investigated the crash, it was later learned that the incident was caused by the ill-fated decisions of a drunk driver.
The victim, whom the mother said suffered from bipolar disorder and drug and alcohol addiction, had just made a vow to fix her demons and fix her life.
Unfortunately, she never got the chance.
“She promised me, ‘Mommy, I’m not going to do drugs. I’m going to give it all up,’” Tracy remembers. “I didn’t believe her. As many times as she told me that, I didn’t believe her. … But when I got the report back from the autopsy, I got in it that my daughter had no alcohol and no drugs in her.
“I was so proud of her that night. Even though she died, I was so proud of her.”
With the holidays around the corner, the Louisiana State Police is combining with the local sheriff’s offices and municipal police departments to try and make sure that no other mother has to feel Tracy’s pain.
The law enforcement entities announced last Thursday at the Troop C office in Gray that they will again attempt to go Zero for December, an initiative that aims to educated and inform citizens of the dangers of drunken driving with the hopes of going the entire 31-day period without a traffic fatality caused by the growing problem.
At the end of the initiative’s launch, Tracy joined other law enforcement and MADD members in lighting a Christmas tree decorated with the faces of young men, women and children who were lost in alcohol-related crashes in recent years.
“We want to take a few moments today to reflect on some of the problems that impaired driving has caused our community, Troop C Captain Darrin Naquin said. “We take some time also to remember the victims of this particular crime, while also pledging our commitment to continue to fight against this crime so that we can reach our goal of zero deaths.”
According to Naquin, the December initiative is vital because of how prevalent alcohol-related crashes have become in our community.
The captain said that drunk driving is the most frequently committed crime in the entire Tri-parish area by a lofty margin.
Naquin said that statistics show that half of fatal wrecks locally involve alcohol impairment and that there are more alcohol-related traffic fatalities each year than there are murders.
“During a recent three-year period in the Troop C area, we had 125 total crashes and 75 alcohol or drug-related crashes, those accidents resulted in 80 deaths,” Naquin said. “During that same period, we had 41 homicides. That’s almost twice as many people taken from us by impaired driving.
“Whenever there’s a murder, obviously it’s a big story. But we have a much greater problem on our highways.”
To fight the problem this December, officers plan to have numerous checkpoints through Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes to attempt to limit the number of impaired drivers that take the wheel. The law enforcement entities also aim to educate and instruct citizens of the dangers involved in their decisions.
MADD member Valerie Cox said the crime is 100 percent able to be fixed. All it takes are efforts like Zero for December to pound the message into people’s minds.
“This is fixable,” Cox said. “We don’t have to find a cure for this. All you have to do is make a plan. Have a designated driver if you’re going out. … Just ask for assistance.”
Throughout the multi-year history of the Zero for December initiatives, law enforcement has never successfully prevented a fatality from occurring in the month.
But Troop C Public Information Officer Evan Harrell said that if one life is saved due to awareness, the month-long push is worth it.
“Just because we don’t reach the goal of zero deaths, you don’t give up on the community,” Harrell said. “We haven’t done it yet, but we’re making progress. It’s that continual community effort that is getting us closer to our goals and saving lives by spreading that message.”
Local Trooper given honor
At the ceremony, Cox awarded Troop C trooper W.J. Powell with an award for making the most DWI arrests in the Tri-parish area in the past year.
The local trooper was chosen over six other nominees, which included deputies from all do the other local law enforcement entities.
Combined, the six nominees combined for more than 200 DWI arrests in the past year. Powell made 57 arrests on his own.
“Thank you so much for what you do,” Cox said. “You’re out on the forefront putting your lives in danger by working overtime and working ungodly hours to try and keep our roadways safe. For that, I applaud all of you.”
“He takes his job very seriously and does it very well,” Naquin said of Powell.
Local authorities joined members of MADD Thursday to launch the Zero for December program and light a memorial Christmas tree. Pictured from left are Assumption Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Traigle, MADD’s Mary Kay Tracy, state police Troop C Commander Darrin Naquin, MADD members Ava Fontenot and Valerie Cox, Troop C PIO Evan Harrell and Lafourche sheriff’s Lt. Doug Foreman. The crackdown against impaired motorists extends through the Christmas holiday.
