911, Mom's Drunk And All Over the Road!

The ABAJournal tips us to this story in the New York Post by Beth Weinstein with contributions from Kieran Crowley and Robert Kalfus:

"A young girl fearing for her life made a frantic cellphone call to cops to report her mom was swerving wildly through traffic while driving drunk.   The Long Island mother was busted upstate for driving while intoxicated with her terrified kids in the car -- one of whom dialed 911 from the car for help, authorities said yesterday.

The boozed-up woman's 12-year-old daughter used a cellphone to tell the dispatcher that her mom was 'acting strange, speaking strange and swerving in and out of traffi'" as they barreled along Interstate 84 near Brewster in Putnam County around 6 p.m. Sunday, officials said.

'The girl reported [her mom] was driving erratically' and then hurriedly said she had to hang up, said State Police Capt. Robert Nuzzo. 'The 911 operator lost connection and tried calling the number back several times. At one point, [the phone was] picked up, and no one was talking. There was just an argument going on in vehicle.'

The mom, Jamie Hicks (pic), 48, of Islip, later registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.18 -- more than twice the legal limit of 0.08, police said. The bust occurred just a day before the one-year anniversary of the horrific Taconic Parkway wrong-way crash in which another drunk-driving mom killed herself, four children and three others.  Hicks was driving her daughter and 10-year-old son back from their grandparents' home in Southbury, Conn., cops said. After the girl phoned 911 for help, the mom pulled her 1995 Buick LeSabre to the side of the road, authorities said.

Two people driving in a minivan nearby witnessed the mom and daughter arguing inside the parked car and pulled over to investigate, cops said. By this time, troopers had arrived, guided to the location after authorities traced the cellphone."
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Tragedy averted?  Maybe. 

Certainly fatalities were averted by this brave 12 year old girl;  I don't need to remind you of the horrific Taconic Parkway DUI fatalities involving the intoxicated mom who left a picnic and killed so many in a wrong way crash along the same stretch of highway last year.

Still this remains a terrible tragedy regardless of the lives not lost to this insane woman's drunk driving.  The family tragedy of Jamie Hicks' driving under the influence will resonate throughout the lives of her family.  But there is also an incredible opportunity for Mrs. Hicks and her family and others--in darkness there is the capacity for great light, may we all find it.