One woman speaks out about how a drunk driver killed her husband and changed her life forever.
TRAVERSE CITY -- A northern Michigan woman is speaking out...using her own tragedy to remind drivers to celebrate responsibly on New Year's Eve.
Katie Whittaker-Mort of Traverse City is sharing a personal story with 7&4 News in hopes that people stay safe this holiday.
Katie and her husband Chris had just been married a few weeks and were on their way back from a canoe trip in July of 2007 when the tragic accident happened on US 31 in Manistee. The newly married couple was traveling in separate cars when the accident happened.
"It is very, very difficult to know that I'll never be able to have my first anniversary with my husband and grow old with him and the promise of love that we made on our wedding day all of that has been taken away from me," says Katie Whittaker-Mort.
Taken away in only a matter of seconds...that's all it took for a drunk driver to destroy the life of Katie's husband Chris and the life they had planned together.
"We were at the intersection of 31 and 8 mile when a van did not stop and hit and killed my husband. I was the first one there on the scene, I was there to witness my husband die. Later we found out that this man had been drinking and my husband was killed by a drunk driver," says Katie.
In addition to Katie's husband Chris, a 14 year old girl in a separate car was also killed by the drunk driver. Now, more than a year later, Katie still deals with the tragedy.
"I'm still trying to pick up the pieces of my life and go on, carry on....When he was killed we were only married for two months, we had just gotten back from our honeymoon and we were supposed to be putting out wedding announcement in the newspaper.....Instead of making plans for that I was making plans for his funeral and writing an obituary up for him and I never got around to putting our wedding photo in the newspaper," says Katie
It's these personal details that Katie hopes will make people stop and think before they choose to drink and drive.
"The cost of taking a taxi or the extra time it takes to call up a friend to pick you up those are nothing to a lifetime of being without your husband or being without someone you love and it can happen so fast ," says Katie.
The drunk driver who caused the two deaths in July of 2007, did survive the accident and is serving time in prison for the crime.
