AVOID TRAGEDY
Dad who lost son tries to steer other teens clear.
As a father spoke about his dead son, the mangled sports car that caused the 17-year-old’s deadly injuries sat on the sidewalk outside a Regina high school.
Jason “Jay” Drew was responsible for his early demise in 2003, the result of a bad decision and a highspeed crash. While driving, Jay missed a turn and hit a tree with tremendous force, trapping him in the vehicle for an hour and a half with several broken bones. His dad, Greg, rushed to the scene and stayed with his son who had broken bones in three of his limbs.
“I don’t know whether I’ll ever leave that anger behind with Jay,” Drew said Monday.
“It’s like I said to him when I got to the crash scene — I wasn’t impressed — I told him he gets a shot in the head one day when he gets out of this one — because I thought he was smarter than that.”
Drew’s tough-love message was on display at Campbell Collegiate, kicking off Provincial Impaired Driving Awareness Week, organized by Students Against Drinking and Driving (SADD).
Though high speed was responsible for Jay’s death, not alcohol or drugs, Drew’s focus is on getting kids to make responsible driving decisions and encouraging their friends to do the same. He raised his voice when he held his phone up to the crowd and talked about how distracted driving is killing young people, drawing on his background as a former firefighter for gruesome examples.
It was through Drew’s job that, six months before Jay’s crash, he saw the same type of car as his son’s crumpled up in an accident. Drew sent the picture to his son, hoping to convince him he wasn’t invincible.
“He had that opportunity to learn, but he didn’t take that and run with it. He had three crashes the last two weeks of his life,” Drew said.
He describes his presentation as “not your typical sugar-coated message.” Drew went through a wide range of emotions onstage while speaking to a room full of kids (all around the same age Jay was when he died), but his message was that of love: Don’t make your family go through this.
Several students left the auditorium with tears running down their faces after giving Drew a big hug.
“I know what I’m doing is probably taking many years off of my life, but I’ll jump in front of that bus for the kids,” Drew said.
“If I can impact one kid every time I talk, I know I have added decades to that kid’s life.”