Our son Brian Hoeflinger died in a tragic car accident four months before graduating high school at the young age of 18. He was a kid just like you who had hopes and aspirations of going to college and having a full happy life.
On the night he died, he was at a party with friends drinking vodka and ended up driving intoxicated. I remember the phone call we received late that night when we learned Brian had been in a car accident. The sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach and the frantic racing of your heart when you don’t know if your child has been hurt or if he is even still alive. Your entire body trembles uncontrollably with fear as you anticipate what you will be told on the phone. We were told to come to the hospital immediately.
I remember the drive to the hospital. It was cold and snowing that night. We were so scared of what we were about to find out. How badly was our son Brian injured? When my wife and I arrived at the hospital, we were told Brian was dead. Our bodies were numb. We immediately felt empty and completely alone inside. “How can this nightmare be real?” is all you can think to yourself.
We were walked back to the room where Brian was. That image of our son lying there on a cold gurney dead at age 18 will never leave our minds for as long as we live. His pale lifeless body lying there almost as though he were asleep, wishing he were only asleep but knowing all [too] well that he was dead and never coming back home with us ever again. It is the worst singular feeling we have ever experienced in our lives.
The second worst feeling was telling our other three children at home about an hour later that their older brother Brian was dead and gone forever. The pain we inflicted upon them at that moment in the middle of the night was unthinkable. There are no words to give justice to what took place. At our children’s request, we took them to the hospital to see Brian. It would be the last time that they would ever get to see him so close to being alive. It was heartbreaking to watch Kevin, Julie and Christie say goodbye to their big brother forever that night. The lasting image of him lying there dead on a gurney in the emergency department permanently seared into their minds. That life we had with Brian is over now and an unwelcome new life without Brian has taken its place.
We tell you this story because Brian could be any one of you if you choose to drink. And we say choose because it is your choice and nobody else’s. Once you take your first drink of alcohol, you are not making the decisions, the alcohol is. You are putting yourself and others at risk for injury or, even worse, dying like Brian.
Now you may say that Brian was stupid and not a responsible person. You would never be that dumb or make that mistake and it could never happen to you. Well, Brian used to say that too and look how it turned out for him.
Let us tell you, Brian was not a stupid person. He had a 4.5 GPA, 32 ACT score, was a 4 handicap golfer, and was accepted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which was his first choice in colleges. Brian always made good decisions until alcohol was involved. You see, you can’t make good decisions when you drink alcohol. No matter how much you think you can, you can’t. Brian proved that.
