‘YOU RUINED MY LIFE’
Victim confronts drunk driver
Ottawa’s Stephanie Albert laid out in painful, sometimes angry, detail Thursday the life-altering injuries she suffered due to the recklessness of a drunk driver on a sunny afternoon in Carleton Place.
Albert, 30, told a sentencing hearing in Perth that she was doing what she loved most — riding her motorcycle — when an impaired driver crossed into her lane as she crested a hill on Highway 7.
That driver, Roy Radke, 37, of Ottawa has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing bodily harm and impaired driving causing bodily harm.
“Roy Radke, you killed Stephanie Albert on September 1st, 2017,” Albert said in her victim impact statement, addressing Radke from the witness stand. “The person standing before you has been reduced to a shell of that passionate young woman.”
Court heard that Radke drank three shots of tequila and downed several beers before getting into his car late on the afternoon of Sept. 1, 2017.
Tests would later reveal that he had more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system at the time of the accident.
It was the start of the Labour Day weekend, court heard, and eastbound traffic on Highway 7 through Carleton Place had slowed to a crawl.
Witnesses said Radke accelerated out of his lane and into the open westbound lane of traffic. He clipped two vehicles, lost control of his hurtling car — some estimated his speed at 80 kilometres an hour — and slammed into the westbound Albert and her Honda street bike.
Albert’s pelvis mashed into her motorcycle’s raised gas tank and her body was catapulted over its handlebars. She flew over the car, somersaulted, and landed on her back on the other side of the highway.
Albert, a graphic designer with the federal government, was airlifted to The Ottawa Hospital with life-threatening injuries, which were described for the court Thursday: a shattered pelvis; a fractured left femur; two broken wrists; a broken back (third thoracic vertebra); three broken ribs; two collapsed lungs; a broken tailbone; a ruptured bladder; a bruised spleen; torn abdominal muscles; and a severe concussion.
Her pelvis was so badly broken that the bones pierced the skin of her leg.
She suffered massive blood loss, and might have died at the scene if not for the assistance of an off-duty paramedic who applied pressure to her wounds.
Albert has had nine surgeries to piece her body back together. She was one week in a coma. It took her three weeks to sit up, two months to take her first step. She spent four months in rehab to regain the ability to walk, climb stairs and use her hands.
More surgery is needed on her wrist.
Albert read at length from the diary she kept during her recovery, which recounted the fear, confusion, frustration, despair, depression and physical agony that marked her hospitalization and rehab. “Why, why me? Why did he have to hit me?” she said, quoting her diary.
Albert has been unable to return to work because of persistent problems with her short-term memory and her ability to concentrate.
Extensive damage to her wrist has also affected the fine motor skills that made her an accomplished artist and graphic artist. She has been diagnosed with PTSD and a depressive disorder, along with a traumatic brain injury.
She said she has not known a day without pain since the accident. “This is a nightmare I will never wake up from until I take my last breath,” she said.
Albert told Superior Court Justice Gary Tranmer that she will not be satisfied with Radke’s sentence — whatever is imposed.
“You ruined my life,” she told Radke. “Driving is and always has been a privilege — a privilege I take more seriously than you do. You should never be allowed to drive, ever.”
Albert received a standing ovation from the 50 spectators in the courtroom when she finished her hour-long victim impact statement.
Her mother, Guylaine Albert, also addressed the court. She showed pictures of the pins, plates and metal scaffolds required to piece her daughter back together. She asked Radke to look at them.
“I want these images to be imprinted on your mind, Mr. Radke, for the rest of your life so you don’t make the same mistake ever again,” she said.
Guylaine Albert said her once vibrant, happy daughter has been diminished by the accident and now struggles with depression, pain and the limitations imposed on her new life.
Stephanie Albert has documented her journey online in a remarkable and graphic account published on the social media website Imgur.com
She launched the blog early in her recovery when she thought she might die, but it became an essential part of her emotional support system. More than 1.5 million people have viewed her posts, and many readers have responded to them online.
She invited all of them to attend Thursday’s sentencing hearing.
Further submissions and legal arguments are to be made in December before Radke is sentenced.