All Joshua Clark was trying to do was drive back from his intramural basketball game.
Clark was traveling at 30 mph. The drunken driver who hit him was going 60. Clark was hit so hard, he ended up in the back passenger-side seat of his car. He was in a coma for a month — but he knows it could have been far worse.
Brain damage, a broken collarbone, a broken sternum and some broken ribs later, he was thankful just to be alive.
"I made it through because I'm a fighter," Clark said, adding he still had brain damage. "I was told that it was one of the worst car accidents anyone has ever seen."
To promote awareness about the potential risks that result from drunken driving, Amy Gnotek, president and founder of Spartans Against Drunken Driving, or SADD, helped organize an open-mic night to give students — like Clark — community members and police officers the chance to share their drunken driving experiences with others.
"It's basically an open-mic night for anyone to come and share a story about how drunken driving has affected them," Gnotek said before the event, which was held Sunday evening at Wonders Hall Kiva. "It's for anyone who has lost someone because of a drunken driver or was a drunken driver and got in trouble for it. We want the community to hear about the consequences of drunken driving."
East Lansing police Chief Tom Wibert said his department reached a 15-year high on the number of drunken driving arrests in 2005 and is on pace to do it again this year.
Wibert said forums like this one help solve the problem because they raise awareness and provide people with information.
"The police are the enforcement end, but there's also a prevention end," Wibert said. "I think it's the effort to bring the message out because drunken driving is a choice, and so the more information someone has when they decide to start the car or not, the better choice they're going to make."
Wibert said a year and a half ago on St. Patrick's Day, which was a month before he was sworn in as police chief, was the last time there was a drunken driving fatality in East Lansing. The accident occurred a block from his house.
Wibert said the driver was only scratched up, but the victim, a father on his way to work, died on the spot.
Wibert was always hard on drunken drivers, but it was that moment when he knew he needed to make it one of his top priorities as police chief, Wibert said.
The East Lansing Police Department now rewards officers for catching drunken drivers.
"I'm thrilled at the response of our officers," Wibert said.
Deb Smith, student adviser of SADD, said anyone who decides to drink — whether he or she is a big drinker or not — is equally lethal when deciding to get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
"It's not acceptable to drink to the point where you can endanger yourself and everyone else," Smith said. "One drink is too many when you're going to drive."
Alex Altman can be reached at altmanal@msu.edu.
