To help victims, she needs funding

By Andrew Dys - adys@heraldonline.com

Hester Benitez has helped two Rock Hill families who lost teens in drunken driving incidents who didn't get to see the children graduate. She furnished symbolic caps and gowns, hugs and support. She's helped a lady in Great Falls, who was paralyzed after a crash, keep groceries in the fridge.

And more who are hurt, hurting and scared.

She also has talked to 570 people in the court system who had been charged with drunken driving to try to keep the pain from ever happening again.

But after a year of the Stop Impaired Driving program that holds victim impact panels for the court system and assists victims, Benitez is in her own struggle to keep the nonprofit program afloat.

“All I want to do is help victims of DUI crashes,” Benitez said. “I'm just trying to help people just like me.”

Benitez's son and husband were killed in a crash in Las Vegas in 1996. The driver was drunk. She came back to her native Rock Hill a few years ago and found that there was no program here like one she had helped in Nevada — a program designed to help victims and speak to offenders.

The victim impact panels she holds every fifth Thursday at the Baxter Hood Center are made up of victims or families of victims of alcohol-related crashes who tell offenders about the effects of the crashes on their lives.

The presentations include graphic pictures and descriptions and straight talk.

“We don't sugarcoat anything. This is serious and often life and death,” she said. “It isn't a scare tactic: It's the truth.”

Kevin Brackett, 16th Circuit solicitor, embraced the idea at its beginning and continues to support Stop Impaired Driving. The people who attend the panels are often in alternative prosecution such as pre-trial intervention, and each pays $20 toward the program. Yet, the program is not mandated by state law, so not all people charged in alcohol-related vehicle arrests go through it.

“We do not have a law like they have in Las Vegas that mandates a person must attend,” Brackett said. “We can only use it when we make it a condition in times such as pre-trial intervention. We can't force it.”

Brackett has been so impressed with the program's initial success in the first year, he is searching for a state legislator to sponsor a bill that would require Stop Impaired Driving classes as part of court action. A fee paid by offenders would pay for the program.

“This is not charitable work this program provides, it is meaningful services that is important to keeping people safe. It takes these tragedies that have happened to others and turns it into something meaningful.”

York County Coroner Sabrina Gast also is a supporter, and her office, along with Brackett's, has helped Benitez organize two fundraisers for this coming week.

“This program is helping save lives in our community, and it can be even better with community involvement and support,” Gast said.

Not long ago, Benitez was at a department store, and a young man in his 20s approached her. He said he had been through Stop Impaired Driving, and the experience changed his life.

Benitez continues to try to save lives one at a time from her little office on Hampton Street in downtown Rock Hill.

“That's the goal, keep people off the roads who are under the influence,” Benitez said. “I hope to help as many people as I can who are victims. I was one. I still am one. My son's birthday was Oct. 12. My husband's is Oct. 25. But they are not here to celebrate. The hurt never goes away. The only way it goes away is if it never happens in the first place.”