Survivor of drunken driver encourages giving blood

After surviving devastating injuries from being struck head-on by a drunken driver in 2012, Zach Jones knows the importance of both educating against impaired driving and encouraging blood donation.

The 23-year-old Benedictine University graduate will be supporting both causes on New Year's Eve when his new employer, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, joins up with Heartland Blood Centers for the final hours of its “12 Days of Giving” blood drive from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg.

One of Jones' few, vague memories from the week after his crash was seeing red-stained bedsheets and not quite understanding why as he was prepared to be airlifted from a hospital in Kankakee to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

“I know I lost a lot of blood that night I was hit,” said the Westmont resident.

Jones, then 19, was staying with his family in Kankakee in early June 2012, while on summer break from his pursuit of a criminal justice degree at the Lisle university.

The crash occurred as he was driving home just after 10 p.m. on a two-lane highway with a 55 mph speed limit. Coming the opposite direction was a drunken driver whose navigation was so bad several other drivers had already called police.

The impaired driver's vehicle suddenly veered into oncoming traffic, first grazing a pickup truck that managed to swerve mostly out of the way and then colliding with the driver's side of Jones' car.

All Jones remembers is a flash of red in his face, which he believes came from the taillights of the pickup truck. He learned much later that paramedics had to use the Jaws of Life to extricate him from his twisted vehicle on the side of the road.

All the bones on the left side of his face, as well as several teeth, were broken. His left shoulder also was hurt.

“The worst thing, though, was the concussion,” he said.

While major plastic surgery and blood transfusions on the night of the crash started him on the long road to physical recovery, the effects of his brain injury are still felt today.

His memory of nearly the entire week after the crash is gone, and a new sensitivity to lights and sounds made it difficult to be in social settings. Certain triggers can still cause him almost indescribable headaches, he says, different from any he knew before the crash. But experience is teaching him what those triggers are and how to avoid them.

The whole rest of the summer of 2012 was a tough one, devoted entirely to recovery. Doctors advised him not to return to school in the fall, but Jones insisted on getting his life back to normal as soon as possible.

Among the most difficult parts of his recovery was the sentencing hearing for the driver who'd struck him. Not only were there nerves about having to testify against the 39-year-old driver, but there also was the distress of having to see photos of himself injured after the crash.

The drunken driver ultimately was sentenced to eight years in prison, and that first experience in a courtroom prepared Jones more than anything else for his current job with MADD.

About a year ago, while learning about victim's rights as part of his criminal justice coursework at Benedictine, Jones called MADD to start volunteering. His role as a court monitor of drunken driving cases led to a part-time job after he graduated earlier this year.

Jones visits courtrooms in Cook, DuPage, Kankakee and Will counties to make observations and take notes about DUI-related cases. He spends about three or four days a week in court.

“His role is very important because judges and prosecutors, with all due respect, don't always get it right,” said Sam Canzoneri, Illinois executive director of MADD. “And another set of eyes and ears in a courtroom sends a message that no one is above the law or flying under the radar.

“There are 102 counties in Illinois and we try to have a presence in as many courtrooms as possible. We document the activity in the courtrooms, and if there are an unusual amount of DUI cases being pled down to a lesser offense or dismissed, we pursue the matter further.”

But that's not the extent of Jones' work for MADD.

“I'm about to get more involved with victim impact panels,” he said. “I talk to DUI offenders to try to get them to stop drinking and driving.”

For the most part these panels don't involve drivers like the one who hit Jones and are incarcerated for causing severe injury or death. Instead, they aim to show DUI offenders who didn't cause serious harm the possible consequences they miraculously avoided so they don't waste their second chance.

Katie Freeman, manager of donor recruitment for Heartland Blood Centers, said the new association between her agency and MADD comes from the recognition that both share a mission of saving lives. A person severely injured in a vehicle crash can require as much blood as that provided by 100 individual donations, she said.

“Blood donations are vital to the victims of drunk driving crashes,” Canzoneri added. “We have quite a few volunteers who are crash survivors who would not be alive today if it wasn't for blood donations and the blood transfusions that they received. That is why we believe so strongly in partnering with folks like Katie at Heartland.”

Providing blood to 65 area hospitals, Heartland historically has encountered a shortfall of donations around the holidays when people are more busy, Freeman said.

The agency got the notion - proved correct over the past two weeks at Woodfield - that people will respond to the need if donating is made more convenient.

The participation of MADD - and Jones in particular - makes it even more clear why blood donations are so important, Freeman said.

“I think it's great to be able to put a face to your donations,” she said.