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20- PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, December 16, 1997 "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" Family devastated by impaired driver From page 1 hard; it wasn't a normal pass, he looked like he fell asleep. He saw he was too wide and cut back in front of us. "I had no where to go. To the left there was oncom- ing traffic and a ditch to the right so we hit head on, but more to the passenger side. There was more force on the passenger side then my side -- the driver's side -- and they say she was killed instantly..." he said, his voice trailing off as he looked off at the kitchen wall. "He swung out and my wife, who was 18 inches away from me, took the force of the collision." « The Beeches were in a minivan; they were hit by full-sized pick-up truck. "We went into a spin; | had no control over the vehi- cle. He hit us and we spun around backwards, across the south lane and we ended backwards in the ditch, resting against a light stan- dard." Mr. Beech paused to look at his son, who sat perched in his lap. "There was lots of dash blown apart; it was all around us. I checked my legs and they were numb, but I could still move them. I checked for any fires or anything that was ignitable and then looked for my wife, but couldn't see her. "I turned around and looked for her and saw her lying between two of the back seats; the force of the collision had propelled her into the back." Mr. Beech climbed through the passenger side window -- which had been smashed -- so he could turn around and get better foot- ing. "I reached back in to check her legs to see if | could move her if I had to, and when I saw the expres- sion on her face I knew she hadn't survived, although I prayed I was wrong. I put my arm around her but I couldn't tell when she died. "Someone came up and touched my shoulder -- a lady who said she was nurse -- and when I told her it was my wife, she reached in and checked: She told me there was a weak pulse, but later I thought she just told me that to cheer me up," he said, recalling that an ambulance backed up and he remembered falling into the ditch. The driver, he says, was pinned in his truck. He was transported to hospital, where a blood test revealed that he "was well inebriat- ed." After the loss of his 42- year-old wife, telling his children was one of the "toughest things I've ever had to do," said Mr. Beech. "They were told that mommy and daddy were in an accident and that they Natural Ingredients Gaok s Pastry, ©. European Quality Don't be disappointed with your Christmas Dinner by serving baked goods that might be stale, overpriced or pre-frozen! 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"A 35-year-old Oshawa man has been charged with impaired driving causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm, and driving with more than the legal amount of alcohol in the blood stream. "I have not seen the com- plete police report yet, but we do know that he had been drinking most of the day and he knew that he had to go home. He knew he was drunk and had to go home so that was like loading a gun and looking to kill someone. That night was clear and the roads were dry; the weather was not a problem." Mr. Beech said the part that puzzles him most is the justice system. "He'd been charged before as a youth, but that didn't go on his record. He'd also been charged a few years ago, but the court system was so backed up they threw out his case. When he came to court this time he was a first-time offender in the judge's eyes." Mr. Beech has since had to come to terms with the three-year term given the man who caused the acci- dent which killed his wife. "Of course I wanted him to be there for 25 years, but that wouldn't happen," he said. "We plea bargained from 10 to eight and then to three. We didn't want him to get two years less a day because he would have been put in a provincial jail, and they're nothing but half-way houses." After spending one year in a federal prison the Oshawa man was released "on good behavior" and put on day-parole for one year before officially being released, said Mr. Beech. He now struggles with is the fact that the govern- ment does not put money into rehabilitation system. "We can't reform them if we don't have enough money to get them the pro- gram. It's not how long they are in jail, it's how long their rehabilitation lasts and what type of program it is. "Sometimes they don't know right from wrong and the government won't move the money into the pro- grams to bring them back to society. I don't think they want to kill somebody; they just have to learn to control their drinking." R.M. 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