On July 10 of last year, many, many people lost one of the kindest, sweetest, funniest, and most fun-loving person many of us had ever met. To me, he was just a friend. To his family and best friends, he was so much more.
On the night of July 9th, Michael and the rest of the guys were out and about having a good summer night. During this time, Tony and I were going through a "growing up" period, where the both of us were making a conscious effort to spend less time out partying, and more time focusing on work and our futures. Part of this was distancing ourselves from certain people in our lives-- not Michael, he was one of the only ones we were still spending time with regularly, but some of the people mutual friends that we shared. Basically, a lot of old drama that need not be covered within this post.
Michael was riding with two of his best friends and a couple of other friends of ours. The driver was sober (He loved his BMW like a baby), but unfortunately, the driver headed the wrong way down the interstate with a .211 BAC was not. As they approached the exit she had entered on, the car in front of them swerved heavily, revealing a pair of bright headlights headed straight for them. Corbin, the driver, swerved left to try to avoid the driver. Instead of swerving away from them, she swerved toward them instead, rendering his attempt to get away from her car pointless.
That driver was Tammy Kvasnicka, someone who had been convicted of drinking and driving twice before, and caught other times in which the charges had been reduced to reckless driving. If each and every time she had been caught resulted in a DUI conviction, she would have had a total of 4. Why this state is consistently so lenient on repeat offenders is mind boggling.
The car crashed into Corbin's BMW on the passenger side, and caused damage from the driver side all the way back to the passenger side of the vehicle, where Michael was sitting. The front seat passenger, Tony (not my Tony), suffered severe injuries from the crash, his right arm severely maimed. He has had to go through several surgeries, including skin grafts and replacement of a nerve from his leg to his arm in an effort to regain use of his arm again, along with months of physical therapy. As you can imagine, his arm hasn't healed, although he is truly lucky to even have his arm at all.
Michael lost his life right away. Directly after the crash, his two best friends did everything they could to get him to wake up, respond in some way. He never, ever woke up. At just 27, this woman took away the life of one of the most wonderful people many of us have ever known.
Last Monday was her trial.
After three days of the case being presented (without the fact of her previous DUI convictions being made known to the jury), and six hours of deliberation, they found her guilty of Manslaughter with a Dangerous Weapon, Vehicular Homicide, Vehicular Battery, and DUI. Her sentencing is in June.
The manslaughter charge is what the defense was trying to exonerate her of, saying that what she did was not excusable, but that the Manslaughter charge was too much for what she did. Thankfully, the jury didn't agree.
Michael was special to all of us, but most of all, to his family. He was so close with his brother, his nieces, his cousins, and his best friends. He never had one bad thing to say about anyone, and even now, I'm sure that if he were here and it were someone else's loss we were mourning, he would simply stay quiet as well all expressed our disgust of this woman. Hopefully, she spends the rest of her life in prison for the terrible loss she caused not only his family, not only his friends, but the world of this wonderful, loving spirit.
Hopefully, the video I made shortly after he was gone is viewable to more than just me. I can't upload to Youtube because of the songs I used for it, copyright violation and whatnot.
So Michael Xayavong, I miss you, we all miss you. I know your looking down on us, and miss us as much as we miss you. Hopefully, we'll all be together again, one sweet day.
No comments:
Post a Comment