Night Out sends wake-up call to parents and teenage drivers

Published 4:45 pm Thursday, August 7, 2008

Conrad Thompson was 7 years old when a drunk driver plowed him over in the middle of a crosswalk.

He was on his way to an Easter-egg hunt with his family, but ended up in a recovery room at Children’s Hospital instead.

“The doctor told me ‘Son, you’re lucky to be alive and you’re going to have back problems for the rest of your life,’” said Thompson, now chairman of the Snohomish County DUI Task Force. “The doctor failed to tell me that for the next 10 years I’d have violent nightmares — that I’d wake up screaming from recurring dreams that I’d been killed in a car crash.”

Thompson, who retired from law enforcement in 2005, spends much of his time now volunteering in schools and other community settings to discourage people from driving under the influence of alcohol or other mind-altering substances.

He patiently fielded questions and distributed handouts to hundreds of parents and children on Tuesday, Aug. 5, at Mill Creek’s National Night Out event in McCollum County Park. Representatives from the sheriff’s office, the Mill Creek Police Department and a number community advocacy groups gathered in the park to educate people about emergency services and crime prevention programs.

“Events like this help us save lives,” Thompson said, gesturing to the mangled remnants of Chevrolet Cavalier that was totaled in fatal drunk driving crash two years ago.

The driver, 16-year-old Hannah Zylstra, was killed in the accident on Dec. 23, 2006. She and her then 15-year-old sister, Emily Zylstra, were on their way home from a party when Hannah lost control of her vehicle and collided with a Ford Explorer on Woods Creek Road near Monroe.

“My sister and I liked to drink,” Emily wrote in a letter that was displayed alongside the vehicle with photos of the girls together, an autopsy report and other personal items.

Emily escaped the accident with life-changing injuries, while Hannah, who would have been 18 in July, died at the scene.

“We thought the car would be a very good way to make an impact,” said Hannah’s and Emily’s mother, Christine Zylstra, “You can tell your kids not to drink and drive all you want, but actually seeing it makes a memory. If it saves even one life, that’s the goal.”

When it’s not being used by the DUI Task Force, Hannah’s car is parked in the barn at the Zylstra family’s farm in Snohomish.

Christine attends the task force events and shares her daughter’s story with anyone who asks.

“I never approach people; I just wait until they come to me with questions and they always do,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon thing to lose a child in a drunk driving accident. The statistics aren’t good for young people.”

Car crashes are the No. 1 cause of death among young people between the ages of 15 and 20, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nearly 30 percent of the young drivers killed in those accidents are under the influence of alcohol.

Hannah’s red cavalier is just as emergency responders found it: bits of glass from the windshield are sprinkled over the floor and front seats, the upholstery is stained and torn and the car’s body is crumpled up like paper in a wastebasket. Mothers, examining the exhibit — their children’s hands clutched tight in their own — cried: “This is why you never drink and drive.”