December is Drug and Drunk Driving Prevention Month and people who have been impacted spoke out this week in Sioux City in an effort to warn others. Ryan Cantrell is now paralyzed from the waist down after being in a drunk driving crash.
Cantrell says he was supposed to leave with the Iowa National Guard to Saudi Arabia on a Monday, and went out that Saturday night drinking. Cantrell says he then drove his motorcycle at 136-miles-an-hour and crashed. Julie Drew says it took several arrests before she took action.
Drew says she’s been sober since August of this year, and says her first drunk driving was a one vehicle accident which she escaped unharmed. She then had two more drunk driving arrests. Drew says she now tries to get other people not to make the mistakes she made.
She says she’s been involved in programs to prevent drinking and driving and alcoholism, and strongly encourages anyone who thinks they have a problem to seek help with the programs.
Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City hosted the event as part of the effort to educate people about the problems of drunk and drugged driving.