SYDNEY, N.S. — Nita MacLean knows all too well how one bad decision can have lifelong consequences for many people. In 2004, her brother Michael MacLean, ...
From left, Nita MacLean, MADD Cape Breton vice-president. Lloyd MacIntosh, chief of the North Sydney Volunteer Fire Department, and Rob Matheson, president of MADD Cape Breton, attend an appreciation breakfast for responders at Centre 200 in Sydney on Sunday. MacLean’s brother and his girlfriend were killed when a drunk driver struck their vehicle in 2004 and she says her family never recovered from the loss.
Michael MacLean, 20, and his girlfriend Angela Smits, 19, were killed in 2004 when a vehicle driven by a drunk driver crossed the centre line on Highway 104 near River Bourgeois and struck their car. CONTRIBUTED - cc“We never really the same after that. We weren't the same family unit that we once were,” she said.
And it’s not just the families of the victims who suffer from the affects of impaired driving, said MacLean who, along with other members of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada chapter in Cape Breton, hosted a free breakfast for first responders Sunday morning. “They're very impacted by these kind of accidents. They're not accidents though, really … it is a crash and it's not an accident because people choose to do that.”Lloyd MacIntosh, chief of the North Sydney Volunteer Fire Department, has responded to hundreds of collisions in his 38 years as a firefighter. He said people need to think about the “long-reaching, far-range consequences” before they get behind the while impaired.
“A lot of times these collisions are found by the general public before emergency services get there and it can have a profound effect on the general public as well. So it's wide, wide ranging.”Rob Matheson, president of MADD Canada’s Cape Breton chapter, said it’s the first time they’ve hosted an appreciation breakfast for first-responders, but it’s something they hope to make an annual event.
Rob Matheson, president of MADD Cape Breton: “Whether it's a designated driver, stay the night, a taxi, there's always an option to avoid making the bad decision to drink and drive, or use cannabis while they drive.” CHRIS CONNORS/CAPE BRETON POST - cc
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