Convicted drunken driver speaks with local students
Megan Strickland
Chris Sandy shows photos of the crash site where he killed two people in a drunken driving accident in 2000. The court requires him to return to the crash once every year.
Megan Strickland
Chris Sandy, convicted of a drunken driving accident in 2000, speaks to students in Ronan.
Megan Strickland
Chris Sandy, convicted of a drunken driving accident in 2000, and Eric Krug, who is bound to a wheelchair because of a drunken driving accident, talk with students in Ronan about consequences.
Megan Strickland
Eric Krug, bound to a wheelchair because of a drunken driving accident, uses an iPad to talk with students in Ronan about consequences.
Megan Strickland
Eric Krug, bound to a wheelchair because of a drunken driving accident, uses an iPad to talk with students in Ronan about consequences.
Megan Strickland
Chris Sandy shows photos of the crash site where he killed two people in a drunken driving accident in 2000. The court requires him to return to the crash once every year.
Megan Strickland
Chris Sandy, convicted of a drunken driving accident in 2000, speaks to students in Ronan.
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LAKE COUNTY — April 11, 2000 was a typical day for then 22-year-old Chris Sandy. The Georgian was out, having a good time with friends, but the common and unfortunate choice to mix alcohol with driving that evening forever changed his life.
Last week Sandy met with students at Polson, Ronan, and St. Ignatius High Schools to discuss the choice that led him to a 13-year-prison sentence for drunken driving. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Eric Krug, who now speaks through an iPad because of injuries sustained in a separate April 11, 1997 drunken driving crash.
“We’re not the type of people to tell you don’t do this, and don’t do that,” Sandy told the students. “That’s not how we do this. We know it’s up to you to make choices in your life. We hope that by sharing our stories with you, it (will) help you with the choices that you make in your future.”
Sandy’s choice came on a day where he was at a small party with friends.
“I had these four big drinks, back to back to back to back,” Sandy said as he threw his head back in rapid succession four times as though taking shots. Then a call came in that there was another party down the road.
‘I get in the driver’s seat,” Sandy said. “Jesse got in the passenger seat, and we drove off. Except we never made it to that party.”
The road was a familiar one that Sandy had likely driven thousands of times. He can recall with clarity the details of how to get to his friend’s house.
“It was a two-lane road that went from 45 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour,” Sandy said. “You hit a stop sign. You hit a right-hand turn, at the end of the road was where the party was.”
But Sandy and his friends had a habit of driving faster than the posted speed limit, so he barreled down the road at 80 miles per hour. When he fell behind a mini-van, he decided to pass the vehicle, but saw an oncoming car with its turn signal on and tried to swerve back into his lane.
“All of a sudden I see this gold flash shoot in front of my face, then
‘BAM!’ I hear this incredibly loud, solid sound,” Sandy said. “Then
everything went back.”
Sandy awoke seconds later, but still couldn’t see. He could hear his tires roll off the roadway and creep to a halt. He was pinned on the passenger side dashboard.
“I could barely breathe,” Sandy said. “I have no idea how I got out of my car.”
Sandy managed to crawl into the middle of the road, but was in extreme pain because of leg injuries. He could go no further, and laid on the road, waiting for help. He fell in and out of consciousness.
The next time Sandy woke up an officer was standing over him and told him a life-flight helicopter was on the way. The officer then started asking questions about how fast Sandy had been going.
“I didn’t want to get into any more trouble,” Sandy said. “So I immediately lied.”
Sandy can still remember how close the officer then got so he could smell the alcohol on Sandy’s breath and asked, “Have you been drinking?”
“I didn’t want to go to jail for drinking and driving,” Sandy said. “It was bad enough my car was crashed. So I looked at him. I lied again and said ‘no, sir.’ Just as I said that I heard something in the background. Somebody yelled something and those words I heard yelled, I promise you I will not forget them for the rest of my life … ‘There’s a fatality on the scene, there’s a fatality on the scene.’ I realize right then and there, that I just killed somebody.”
Sandy laid on the road and prayed that God would just make everything go away, and that it all was just a bad nightmare. But when he woke up again, he was in the hospital, and a friend was there to tell him the reality.
Nellie King was an elderly woman and passenger in the car Sandy hit. She died on impact and emergency workers found her in ditch far from the crash. Her husband, William King, also an elderly gentleman, was the driver of the car. He died after a surgery in the hospital.
“I found out they were awesome people,” Sandy said. He learned the Kings had a daughter named Susan, a granddaughter named Tara, and many friends who loved them.
“I’m going to tell you that for the rest of my life, every moment, anytime I wake up, I’m always going to know right here (pointing to his heart), regardless of the prison or anything else, that because I wanted to get to this party, because I was so selfish and not doing the responsible thing, because I was in such a hurry to get to that party to party some more, because of that choice … I will forever be responsible for killing two innocent people,” Sandy said.
Sandy can’t imagine what the victims’ families have gone through in the 14 years since the crash, but he told students that he wouldn’t wish upon anyone what he’s gone through.
“Waking up every morning, knowing what I did, it’s almost impossible to explain,” Sandy said.
Sandy spent 3,117 days — almost 8.5 years of his 13-year sentence — in three different prisons. As he was sentenced, Sandy said he turned to the victims’ family and tried to apologize.
“There is nothing I could say or do to change what I had done,” Sandy said. He’s still not sure he “deserves” to be out of prison.
The aftermath of the crash tore apart his family. His parents, who had been married 30 years, divorced.
“They felt they had failed as parents,” Sandy said. “I hurt them deeply.”
Aside from the emotional damage, Sandy’s parents also paid the financial price for his mistake. Because their name was on the title of the car Sandy crashed, his parents were sued for every last penny they had.
Sandy’s little sister, who had idolized him, never looked at him the same way again.
Sandy’s friend Jesse, who miraculously survived the crash because he snapped his seatbelt into place just before impact, was never the same again. Jesse turned to drugs to cope and transformed from a people person who got along with everyone into someone completely different. It took a long time for Jesse to recover from his bad habits. Sandy rarely hears from his former friend, and when he does, it’s only by text message.
Many times during his presentations, students ask what Sandy’s worst prison experience was. He doesn’t tell the typical prison horror story.
Sandy remembers a wonderful 2007 Thanksgiving, where his mother, father, sister, and other family members visited him in jail. He and his father laughed as they raided the vending machine with $20 worth of quarters and made a “redneck” feast.
“We looked ridiculous,” Sandy said. “So my dad, he thought it was
hilarious. He thought it was Thanksgiving and he was going to make the best of it.”
The wonderful day was full of laughs and when Sandy returned to his cell he thought about all the fishing and watching football he couldn’t wait to do with his dad when he was released from prison. But his hopeful thoughts were disturbed when guards came and removed him from his cell a few hours later.
His mother had banged against the prison walls begging to be let back in.
The guards relented, so Sandy’s mother could deliver grim news. Sandy’s father died of a massive heart attack shortly after they pulled out of the prison’s driveway.
Sandy teared up as he told the story of his father’s death.
“I thought there was going to be a moment when I was going to get out of prison and get to make up for what I did,” Sandy said. “You don’t get to make up for what you did. You can only move forward.”
Moving forward’s been a difficult process for Sandy, but in 2006 he met Eric Krug, whom he calls an inspiration.
Krug was a decorated college baseball player at Oglethorpe University with a possible professional career awaiting him. On Krug’s 21st birthday, a group of friends went out drinking. Someone placed him in a cab for his ride home, but a friend convinced him to get into another vehicle. All of the passengers and the driver had been drinking.
The car was 100 feet from its destination when the driver veered off the road and into the trees. One of the passengers was killed. Krug suffered a severed arm and traumatic brain injury. He can only speak through an iPad now.
“Suffering a traumatic brain injury has ruined all of my dreams,” Krug
told the students through the iPad. “Now this is my never-ending
nightmare.”
He makes his experience relatable to teenagers by telling them he’ll never finish college or play professional baseball.
“Can you believe I haven’t been on a date in 16 years?” Krug asked. “So if you can hook me up with a girl my age, please come up after the presentation.”
Krug met Sandy eight years ago and visited Sandy during his prison
sentence. Krug’s sister later married Sandy. The couple has two young children. After Sandy was released, the duo set out to tell their story in hopes students will make better choices.
Jill Campbell of the Lake County DUI Taskforce said having a real life example is helpful when trying to relay information to students. The
taskforce receives $100 of the $200 fine people convicted of drunken driving in Lake County have to pay to reinstate a driver’s license. That money has gone to re-enactments of drunken driving accidents before, but at the end of the day, they aren’t real, Campbell said. She was excited when Lake County Deputy Levi Reed told her that he was able to book Sandy and Krug for a speaking series.
“We’ve done the Ghost Out in the parking lot before, but we needed to do something different,” Campbell said. “This was real.”
