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Grief Healing Discussion Groups

Tanners.Mom

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  • Your relationship to the individual who died
    Cousin
  • Date of Death
    6/16/16
  • Name/Location of Hospice if they were involved:
    Na

Profile Information

  • Your gender
    Female
  • Location (city, state)
    Louisville
  1. On June 16th, I heard a frantic knock on my door. It scared me more than anything because it was after 10pm. I was shocked to see my sister and then suddenly panic when she told me to sit down, she needed to tell me something. My first thought was something had happened to one of my parents. I immediately started to panic. But, it wasn't my parents. My cousin Sarah had been in a terrible car accident that took her life. Sarah and I were barely 2 months apart. We grew up celebrating birthdays together, having sleepovers, and watching stupid scary movies that would terrify us to the point of not going to sleep. We cooked homemade sugar donuts and I nearly burned our house down. We went corsage shopping together for our senior proms. We would go on dinner dates or ice cream trips with our Mamaw, just the three of us. I have so many childhood memories with this girl, my very first best friend. My first reaction was "You're Lying", not that my sister would lie about someone we love dying. But then it was shear panic. My heart tightened up, my lungs exhaled and refused to inhale, my eyes did not want to stop crying. With shaking hands, I took to the Internet to find the article. She had been killed earlier in the evening leaving work. Ten days before her 31st birthday. A maroon SUV sped up to beat a red light. His speed was estimated to be 50-60mph according to bystanders. His SUV t-boned Sarah's Dodge Neon in the driver side door. Sarah was killed on impact and her body was ejected from the car. Bystanders, her co-workers, tried to revive her to no avail. Paramedics tried to revive her to no avail. She was pronounced at 6:20pm. When I found the article on Facebook and saw her car my mind started racing a million miles a minute and I was in a full blown panic attack. My sister didn't know many details but she did know that the other driver walked away without a scratch. The front of their SUV was barely damaged. But Sarah's car-totaled. Sarah-Dead. At the time I couldn't process anything. My brain simply would not work. I sat in shock until my fiance got home. At that time, I called my Mom. She gave me more details but was pretty tore up herself. Sarah was the second oldest of 6 children to my uncle Billy. However, Sarah was his baby girl. She was independent. She moved out into her first apartment not long after her 18th birthday. She had started working at UPS when we were in high school and that's where she was leaving from when the tragic accident took her life. Sarah cared about her parents, siblings, nieces, and nephew. She made sure that her uneducated father had what he needed be in material things or assistance with his bank account and bills. She bought and paid off her very first car with her own money, only needing her Dad to co-sign because of her age. She had, in recent years, purchased her first home. Sarah was working hard with three jobs to remain independent and able to assist her family. The one thing Sarah wanted most in life was a family of her own. Sarah never married. Sarah never got to have children. Normally, my grieving period would last for weeks. In the past, the loss of a loved one meant weeks of crying, sleeping, and deep, dark depression. I have struggled with depression since I was 16 and lost my Papaw. Now, I am diagnosed Bipolar (along with a list of other issues) but I am medicated and I decided that this time, I will not prolong my grieve. I will celebrate Sarah and the time she had with us. Also, I will fight for Sarah. See, the driver of the SUV was not charged for any violation. Not running the red-light. Not speeding. Not even charged for killing my young, beautiful, and thriving cousin Sarah. Instead of grieving in tears, laid in bed, I am joining a fellow co-worker and friend of Sarah's in his march for justice for Sarah and her family. Kenny has started a Change.com petition and a Facebook page titled Sarah's Law. Through research, we have learned that it is not a CRIME to cause an accident and kill someone unless you openly admit you caused the accident to kill the person OR you were intoxicated. Even at that point, the crime is not very punishable in our state. KRS 507.040 says vehicular manslaughter occurs when the operator of a motor vehicle wantonly causes death of another. That means reckless behavior caused an accident. How is running a red-light NOT reckless behavior? Was the driver impaired? We don't know. The police did not tell my uncle if he was tested for drugs or alcohol. Was the driver distracted by a cell phone, the radio, or a passenger? We don't know because the police did not investigate. They say Sarah was not wearing her seat belt. Anyone who knows Sarah knows this CANNOT be true. Sarah would not turn the engine over without the seat belt being locked in place. Did they investigate the seat belt to decide if it was not present beforehand? Perhaps, because of the speed being double that of the posted speed in the area, the impact snapped her seat belt. But did the police investigate this? No. What happened to the driver who caused the accident? He got to go home with someone who picked him up from the scene. And what happened to Sarah? Her lifeless body was placed in a body bag after two sets of people tried to revive her body. The police did not investigate the right way. They did not request information about the stop light activity at the time of impact. They did not blood test him for drugs, only field test for sobriety. They did not request documentation from his cell phone provider to link the phone activity to the time of the accident. We aren't raising awareness for police to learn their job better. We are rising awareness to get a law passed that if you run a red-light causing an accident that kills one or more passengers in the victim or offenders vehicle that it be punishable by law. His first citation should have been running the red-light. The second "charge" should have been vehicular homicide. Unfortunately, as stated in KRS 507.040, the driver has to basically admit their desire to want to cause bodily injury or death to the victim. Help me in my healing process, please take a moment to Like & Share "Sarah's Law" on Facebook. Also, please sign the petition to have a new law set into place which we would like titled Sarah's Law for those senseless drivers who run red-lights and kill other families loved one. The petition can be found by clicking here. Once we have reached our signature goal, Kenny & I will be submitting the petition to the Kentucky State House. We hope that they find our proposal important enough to start the process to pass into law. Once Sarah gets justice, I will be at peace with her death, but not a day before. I will not live in a depressed state but I will continue to push this movement with every fiber of my being. I thank you for your time. Picture: Sarah Nicole Wray, September 2015, bridesmaid at her best friend Stevy's wedding. Such a beautiful soul, inside & out.
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