Families broken: Two women survive drunk drivers, make choice to help others

By Rachel Reischling, Fort Polk Guardian staff writerMarch 2, 2012

usa image
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT POLK -- This year, 10,839 people will die in drunk driving related automobile crashes -- one every 50 minutes. One in three people will be involved in an alcohol-related crash in their lifetimes. These sobering statistics became more than numbers for two women impacted by people who took the wheel after drinking.

"What if …" is a haunting refrain for people touched by tragedy. Vanessa Braggs could not have known that the ordinary evening she shared with her husband and three young sons would metamorphose into a tragedy beyond all reckoning: Six lives would converge one night with devastating consequences.

Oct. 8, 1994 was a normal day for the Braggs family. Ray Braggs, a minister of music, participated in a choir function as he and his family often did. After the function, the Braggs family decided to journey the 25 miles home rather than stay the night in Ringgold, La. -- a decision, said Ray's wife, Vanessa, that she would later deeply regret.

"If I had known what was about to happen, I would have stayed in Ringgold," she said.

For Vanessa, time came to an unexpected halt on that night as she, her husband Ray, 30, and her sons Jeremy, 9, Justin, 7, and Nickalos, 5, traveled down the same highway as did a drunk driver, liquor bottle in hand.

At 10:30 p.m., the inebriated driver hit the Braggs' family vehicle head on traveling around 100 miles per hour. They were only seven miles from home.

In an instant, twisted metal and broken bodies replaced the peaceful evening scene of a family arriving home after a day well-spent together.

"What an impact it was," Braggs said. "So much so that the impaired driver was thrown to the back of his pickup truck with the liquor bottle still in his hand -- dead."

The least injured of the Braggs family was 9-year-old Jeremy, who walked down the road looking for help. He found someone, who arrived at the scene and called emergency services.

"That man who called for help is my guardian angel," said Braggs. "To this day I don't know his name but I thank God for him."

Vanessa and Ray were pinned inside the vehicle; Vanessa was so injured that she didn't know the condition of her two younger sons.

"When they (emergency personnel) cut me out, the dashboard had crushed my face. I was unrecognizable," she said. "I had a broken hip, leg and pelvis and was fighting for my life."

That fight ended quickly for her husband. "When the Jaws of Life cut my husband out, he lay on the side of the road and died. "I lost my best friend," said Braggs. "My whole world was turned upside down."

and Nickalos were airlifted to Louisiana State University Medical Center while Braggs and Jeremy, the less injured of the family, were taken by ambulance. As Braggs arrived at the hospital, she hung on to life; her parents, already there, knew something she didn't: 7-year-old Justin had died.

"The next morning, I remember reaching up and asking my mama to help me breathe because I was having trouble with the damage to my face. From that point until three days later, I didn't know anything else except what my family and friends told me," she said.

"When I woke up, I saw my mom and my friends. I hadn't been awake very long when two doctors and two chaplains came to talk to my mama. Instead, discovering I was awake, they told me that I would have to make a choice."

Braggs' choice was a heartbreaking one: Her 5-year-old son Nickalos had endured three brain surgeries and was on life support. "The doctor told me that we had a decision to make," said Braggs. "We could let him stay on life support and slowly suffocate or we could take him off and let him go to sleep."

Braggs and her family prayed and ultimately decided to take Nickalos off life support.

"We didn't want to see him suffer any longer," she said.

Braggs was wheeled to the intensive care unit unit to say goodbye to her son. "I got a chance to hold him for the last time," she said. "In three days, my family went from five to two," she said.

"The next hardest thing I had to do in my life was to plan a funeral for three of my family members. My oldest son Jeremy no longer had a dad: He wanted to learn how to hunt, to play baseball, to powerlift. I had to step up to the plate and be a mother and a father. I was baseball mom, weightlifting mom, everything he would have wanted his daddy to be," she said.

also stepped up to the plate in the community, becoming involved with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization founded in 1980 by a mother whose 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. MADD favors education, a strict policy on blood alcohol content and help for the victims of drunk driving. She speaks to groups, including a large group of several hundred Fort Polk Soldiers in January, about the tragedy that shattered her life and about MADD.

"We are not angry moms," she said. "We are fathers, grandparents, sisters, brothers, even children. We don't mind if you have a drink of alcohol. But if you do, don't drive. The life you save may be your own."

For a woman who has had to make some tough choices, Braggs emphasizes responsibility and the power inherent in the decisions people make: "For every choice or decision we make, there is a consequence, whether it's good or bad," she said. "October 8 happened because of a choice that man made to get behind the wheel after drinking," she said. "Because of his choice, my family is broken."

Braggs asks people to "make the right choice."

"If you drink, don't get behind the wheel. Your family would much rather get a phone call in the middle of the night to come get you than a knock at the door telling them that you're dead."

Braggs said someone once asked her if she could have forgiven the driver of the pickup truck that killed her husband and sons, had he survived.

Yes, she said.

"He wasn't a bad man. It was the alcohol that made him do what he did. I would have told him, 'if you ever get in this situation again and don't want to call your family, here's my number. Call me and I'll be on my way.'"

Fort Polk employee Millie Green also exudes the grace of a person who has gone through a trial by fire and come out the other side with forgiveness and a drive to educate. "I'm blessed," said Green, a clerk at Fort Polk's Northrop Grumman who recently commemorated an important anniversary: The 27th year since she was involved in a wreck in which she was severely injured by a drunk driver.

"The driver crossed four lanes of traffic before crashing into me," said Green. "I don't call it an accident. It was a wreck."

Pronounced dead at the scene, it took rescuers an hour to remove Green from the car.

"I heard them pronounce me dead twice," she said. She survived, but spent two years in a hospital.

"I had a collapsed lung; my right leg and left hip had to be amputated and the doctors had to put rods and pins in my left arm," said Green.

Green's life changed forever because of the decision a 19-year-old Soldier made to drive while impaired by alcohol and drugs.

"I used to run six miles every day," she said. "My life changed drastically after the wreck. I can't go to the beach or walk in the sand. I can't climb bleachers for ballgames or climb stairs."

Despite her injuries, Green is thankful for the simple things and makes it her daily goal to cherish life.

"I have a beautiful prosthetic leg worth $18,000. I have a daughter, five granddaughters, six great-granddaughters and four great-grandsons. And I no longer stress over things that used to bother me. So what? It's okay. Nothing bad will happen if you miss a deadline," she said.

The anger she once felt towards the teenager who changed her life has disappeared. "I used to be angry but I'm not now. I have no reason to be angry and I refuse to be. I've learned to let things go and be grateful for the things I have.

"I'm just glad to be alive. I'm in love with people and am a much better person the second time around."

Green met with Braggs on Fort Polk recently to speak of their mutual experiences. "Meeting Vanessa was beautiful. Her attitude towards life is indescribable. She's accepted and moved on. Neither of us wallow or pity ourselves," she said.

Like Braggs, Green emphasizes the consequences of actions, how life can change in an instant should a person make a wrong choice. "Think of the effects you'll reap before you get behind the wheel drunk," she said.

You might lose your rank, kill or be killed. You could kill someone's baby. Everyone has a non-drinking friend. Get a designated driver.

"There are too many crosses on the highway. I could have been one more," said Green. "When you fall down you have to get it together and keep moving. I'm just glad to be here, she said."