A trip to buy cigarettes turned into something she can still feel the effects of years later.
Melissa Roberge, a victim of a drunken driving crash in 2002, said she suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Every time her fiancÇ sneaks up behind her, she said she can feel the effects of the crash like it just happened.
"My heart leaps into my throat, my adrenaline rushes and the taste of copper floods my mouth," Roberge said.
The light turned green on Central Avenue and Girard Boulevard on Aug. 17, 2002. Roberge began to drive though, but her car never made it.
TVI student Tasha Martin makes that same drive every day.
"Just hearing it can happen close by really has an impact," she said.
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Roberge saw the grille of a Suburban five feet in front of her that had just t-boned her vehicle. She said 50 percent of people involved in those accidents don't survive. She managed to push herself up to a sitting position, reached her arms up and noticed immediately they were covered with glass. She recalled saying, "I'm not done."
Following a video presentation at TVI on Thursday, Roberge, a victims' rights advocate, spoke to about 30 students on the effects of driving drunk.
She told students getting through everyday life is extremely difficult and demonstrated using a walker that she needed following the crash.
Linda Atkinson, director of the DWI Resource Center, said people need to balance their bodies while they are out drinking and make safe choices about how they get home.
TVI student Joe Neer said he wished people would realize using a designated driver means waking up alive the next day.
Neer comes from a medical family that knows the effects of many medical problems, but driving under the influence hasn't hit them.
He said he was moved by Roberge's presentation and liked the combination of a video presentation and a live person speaking.
"To actually hear a victim talk makes it personal," Neer said. "It puts a face on the issue."
The students in the video went through a drunken driving incident. A police officer named them as victims, confronted their families, had body bags issued in their names, and attended a mock funeral where they read their last words to their parents.
For every person victimized, Atkinson said the effects are felt by at least 20 other people.
Last year, she said 218 fatalities in New Mexico were related to drunken driving incidents.
For that, she asked the audience to stand for a moment of silence.
Atkinson said raising awareness that drunken drivers could be caught might reduce injury by 20 percent.
"That's where we see a lot of the outrage, in that it is preventable," she said.
Facts about drinking
* About 750 people were permanently disabled between 1998-2002 by injuries caused by drunk drivers.
* Between 1998 and 2000, 1.7 percent of families have had a member killed or injured in a DWI-related crash.
* Economic cost in Bernalillo County for DWI-related crashes in 2002 was $196.8 million, including costs for medical care, property damage and time off the job.
* In 2003, New Mexico was ranked the sixth-worst state in the nation for alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths per capita.
* New Mexico fatal crashes are 38 percent more likely to involve a DWI than fatal crashes elsewhere.
* From 1998 to 2002, 69.7 percent of vehicle occupants killed by drunk drivers in Bernalillo County were not using seat belts.
* Sixty percent of DWI crashes happen at night, and 31 percent happen on Friday and Saturday nights.
* Among New Mexico drunk drivers in crashes, 82 percent are male, 58 percent are under 30, 16 percent are under 21, and 7 percent of drunk drivers in crashes are from another state.
* Based on the statewide rate that one in seven New Mexico drivers has been convicted of DWI, approximately 55,216 drivers in Bernalillo County have been convicted of DWI.
* New Mexico spent an annual average of $25.4 million for 2001-2003 for the direct costs of DWI case handling in the criminal justice system.
* For 1990-1998, more than 50 percent of the children under 12 killed in New Mexico alcohol-related crashes were in the vehicles operated by drunk drivers.
* In a typical month in New Mexico, 16 children under age 13 are passengers in a car that crashes with an impaired driver at the wheel.ˇ
Source: New Mexico Victims' Rights Project