Teen’s tragic loss becomes vital lesson for classmates

Senior relates how one drunken driving accident
can affect many livesCorrespondent

By tara petersen

Senior relates how one drunken driving accident
can affect many lives
Correspondent


STEVEN M. BARON Kari Wasserman speaks after a mock DUI accident presented to the East Brunswick High School senior class June 3. She is flanked by police Lt. John D’Antuono (l) and Capt. James Varick of the East Brunswick Independent Fire Company.STEVEN M. BARON Kari Wasserman speaks after a mock DUI accident presented to the East Brunswick High School senior class June 3. She is flanked by police Lt. John D’Antuono (l) and Capt. James Varick of the East Brunswick Independent Fire Company.

EAST BRUNSWICK — Kari Wasserman knows that her message may not get through to everyone, but she hasn’t stopped trying.

Wasserman, now 18, openly shares her story of a personal tragedy so that other teenagers will stop themselves from getting behind the wheel after they have been drinking.

"You hear people in the hallway [at school] bragging about drinking and driving. It’s a common conversation. It makes me feel really disgusted that people can be so irresponsible with their own lives and with the lives of others," Wasserman said.

Wasserman’s older sister Meryl, who was 15 at the time, was killed by a drunk driver on Aug. 1, 1989, while riding her bicycle home from camp. She had stopped to pick some flowers in a grassy area beside the road when she was hit by a 26-year-old woman, now in prison. Wasserman recalls that she was about 6 years old when she lost a sister and "everything fell apart."

Two weeks ago, Wasserman’s school, East Brunswick High School, organized a mock drunken driving accident with the help of the local police and fire departments, and the township’s rescue squad. Two of the four acting participants were pretending to be dead and two were supposed to have been paralyzed. Wasserman delivered a speech after the demonstration — held the week of the school prom and designed to show the serious consequences of drinking and driving. One of the student "actors" was driven off in a hearse to the words "she’s not going to make her graduation."

However, Wasserman recalls many of her classmates’ lackadaisical reactions.

"There was lots of laughing [in the audience]. It was ridiculously immature of them. Some kid even stood up and said ‘Drunk driving is cool.’"

Wasserman said that before her speech that day, she had never spoken publicly about her story, which she said also isn’t discussed at home.

"I didn’t think I was going to cry. I don’t cry. But after I read the first paragraph [of my speech], I could remember how it felt to lose someone. I got really emotional because I didn’t want anyone to ever feel like that."

She said that as soon as the previously rowdy audience heard her sobs, "it was the strangest thing. There must have been 900 students there, and no one was talking."

After relating her personal recollections of the events in 1989, she said, "What some of you need to understand is that when you drink and drive, the effect it has doesn’t stop with your family." Wasserman then added, "The next time you get in the car intoxicated … I want you to look over at your best friend, and envision their mother or father getting the call that you killed their child."

She also said she wanted her classmates to picture themselves letting their entire family down.

She said that after reading part of her speech, "I looked up, and people I didn’t even know were crying hysterically."

Wasserman said the reactions she received from people at school the next day made her candor all worthwhile. "People were coming up to me, telling me what it meant to them. Someone even put a note on my desk saying that it would impact her behavior at the prom," she said.

She spoke about the prom, telling the many classmates who would be celebrating afterwards at the shore that "there was no need to get in a car."

"I’m not saying you can’t go out and have fun. Just think before you do dumb things," she said.

With the high school graduation tomorrow, Wasserman noted that the school has organized an all-night event afterward, including sports and other recreational activities, to make sure students don’t act irresponsibly. But 10 different graduation parties are on Wasserman’s calendar for the weekend. Knowing that alcohol is likely to be part of some students’ celebrations, she is hopeful that her message has gotten to at least some of them.

"I want people to think of the most important things in their lives and realize that if they choose to be careless, that it can all be gone in a second," she said.

Wasserman plans to major in history at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania this fall. She is contemplating a career as a history teacher.