Five people. Two cars. One death.

It was a snowy night in Marissa, Ill. Amanda, Emily and Laura were out shopping and having fun. They weren’t doing anything wrong, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them. It was about 10 p.m., and they were just 10 minutes away from home when a truck swerved into their lane and rammed into their car head on.

Amanda, 16, was driving, Emily, 14, was in the front seat, and Laura, 13, was in the backseat. On impact, the vehicles propelled to opposite sides of the road. Emily’s door was jammed, but, luckily, her uncle (Amanda’s dad) was a volunteer firefighter and was driving behind them when the accident occurred. A man with a metal plate in his elbow stopped at the scene to help, and he broke the window. Then, they cut Emily’s seatbelt and pulled her out of the car and into safety. Ten seconds later, the car erupted in flames.

In the accident, Emily’s head hit the windshield, causing a concussion, and she drifted in and out of consciousness. After she fully regained consciousness, she could not walk for three weeks because of a hematoma, or a large bruise, on her leg that stretched from the middle of her thigh to her calf. To this day, a large section of her knee is scar tissue. Laura remained conscious but suffered a broken arm and several stitches. Amanda, however, was not so lucky. She broke several ribs on impact, and she was knocked unconscious. She never woke up.

The two men in the other car had reportedly been bar-hopping since 8 a.m., and marijuana was found in their possession. Neither of them were wearing seatbelts, but they both lived. Because the reconstruction of the accident revealed Amanda crossed the line before the other driver, he received a DUI, and the passenger was charged with public intoxication. Both paid fines, but neither spent time in jail.

Seems pretty minimal considering Amanda lost her life.

“It’s not the physical part, it’s not the broken bones, it’s not the totaled car,” Emily said. “It’s what you have to carry with you for the rest of your life when you lose somebody like that or are the reason somebody died.”

Fourteen years after the accident, Emily Beuckmann, school psychologist at KHS and NKMS, still struggles with her cousin’s death. She thinks about her best friend on several occasions, including Amanda’s birthday, the anniversary of the accident and during the holiday season.

Emily also still wrestles with the fact that if the men hadn’t been drinking, they could have reacted more appropriately, and the accident may not have happened.

This can happen to anybody. And it does. Every day.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 32 percent of fatal car crashes in 2009 were caused by alcohol-impaired driving. In other words, on average, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash every 45 minutes in the United States.

Some of those people are our age. Four people under the age of 21 die every day in alcohol-related accidents according to a study by NHTSA and FARS in 2009. Stop and think about that for a second. What if one of those four was you or your best friend?

“It’s not just about you when you’re out there drinking and driving,” Emily said. “It’s so much more than just a good night or a good party or a good time.”

Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaigns to eliminate drunk driving and has helped reduce the number of drunk driving fatalities by 12 percent between 2006 and 2008, according to its website. It has taken incredible strides in reducing fatalities due to alcohol-impaired driving, but we can help save lives too. Just like those two men had a choice that fateful day, we do too. All it takes is one moment, one mistake. We all have a choice, and whether we make the right one is up to us.