This has been a sad week in St. Louis. On April 29th at 12:30 AM Josh Hancock, a player for the Cardinals, was killed when his Ford Explorer struck a tow truck in the left hand lane of the highway. The truck was in front of a disabled car and had its emergency lights flashing when Hancock's vehicle hit it, killing the 29 year old relief pitcher instantly.
Today the St. Louis Medical Examiner announced that Hancock was legally intoxicated at the time of his death, and was talking on a cell phone when his SUV hit the tow truck:
Hancock's blood-alcohol level was 0.157, nearly twice Missouri's legal limit of 0.08, Graham said. Police Chief Joe Mokwa said 8.55 grams of marijuana and a glass pipe used to smoke marijuana were found in the rented Ford Explorer. Toxicology tests to determine if drugs were in his system had not been completed.
"If you drink, don't drive," Mokwa said. "Use a taxi. Have a designated driver. Call a friend."
Chief Mokwa's advice is worth repeating. Here are some tips on using designated drivers, as found on Dr. David J. Hanson's excellent and helpful website Alcohol Problems & Solutions:
Plan ahead whenever you are going to socialize with alcohol beverages.
Decide ahead of time who will not drink any alcohol before or during the party or event.
Consider taking turns being the designated driver (Look after your friends and family and they can look after you).
Larger groups should have more than one designated driver.
If you are in a situation where someone in your group has become impaired from too much alcohol, Dr. Hanson has a list of tips on how to prevent a potential tragedy from occuring - by taking away the car keys:
Be calm. Joke about it. Make light of it.
Make it clear that you're doing the drunk person a favor.
Locate their keys while they're preoccupied and take them away. They will probably think they've lost them and will be forced to accept another mode of transportation.
If it is a close friend, try to use a soft, calm approach. Suggest to them privately that they've had too much to drink and it would be better if someone else drove them home or if they took a cab or other transportation.
If it's a good friend, spouse, or loved one, tell them that if they insist on driving, you are not going with them. Tell them that you will ride with someone else, take public transportation, or walk.
If it's someone you don't know well, speak to their friends and have them make an attempt to persuade them to hand over the keys.
If possible, avoid embarrassing the person or being confrontational.
The Designated Driver concept, founded in 1988 by the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Health Communication, has been an amazing success both in raising awareness of the role of the designated driver and in reducing fatalities related to alcohol use. According to statistics from the Harvard Alcohol Project, 50,000 lives were saved in the first ten years of the designated driver program. Let's hope that those reading about the death of Josh Hancock remember they may have the chance to save a life someday by "Taking the Lead.'
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Also, don't smoke marijuana and drive. While there's nothing wrong with it in a recreational context, directing a several tone piece of steel and plastic is irresponsible while intoxicated on pretty much anything.
Here's what gets me ... and I live in Dallas, and we have some sports player take out someone it seems like one a year.
Sports teams pay these fellows lots of money. Why don't they hire each player a full time driver?
It sure would save a lot of heartache.
It isn't enough to simply not ride with an intoxicated driver. Even if it turns confrontational, it is worth the confrontation to stop them driving. If they insist on driving, call the police immediately and have them stopped.
If someone had done that, there is a reasonable chance my youngest brother would still be alive. As it was, an "average guy" leaving an office party and insisting on driving himself killed him.
I don't personally care if people choose suicide through stupidity. But drunk drivers don't just involve themselves, even if they're the only ones in their own car.
I don't think my parents ever recovered from losing Jeff, and I still miss him. He would have been a professional musician.