“We used to call texting her favorite hobby,” Wendy Lerch said.
But what seemed like normal and harmless behavior contributed to the car crash that took her life.
Around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 23, Heather Lerch, a 2009 Tumwater High School graduate, lost control of her 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt on Littlerock Road, about two miles from her family’s home. Phone records show that she had been sending and receiving text messages until the moment before the crash.
Today, Wendy Lerch will be among the speakers at Heather’s old high school, where students have organized an assembly to educate students on the dangers of texting and driving.
Other demonstrations include a crash reenactment involving a sedan and an SUV, a LifeFlight helicopter and a display of the wreckage of Heather’s car.
Wendy Lerch said that she and her husband, Dan, didn’t think twice about donating the wreckage for educational purposes and speaking out about the topic just a few months after their daughter’s death.
“They need to see the devastation,” she said.
“This is for real. And don’t say this won’t happen to you. This happens.”
DEMONSTRATION
Today’s assembly follows up on a Thursday activity, when a dozen students were chosen to be “killed” in texting-while-driving accidents. Those students were called out by the Grim Reaper and taken from their classrooms by paramedics with gurneys while their obituaries were read over the school’s public address system. Two students were “arrested” by a Washington state trooper for vehicular homicide.
Tumwater High School junior Kelli Finnigan couldn’t help sobbing after reading an “obituary” over the school loudspeaker for her friend Mackenzie Cooper, who was playing the part of someone who died.
“I think this will make a lot of people think about texting and driving,” Finnigan said.
The project, organized by high school seniors Abbey Madison and Jena Graham, is unusually long for an assembly, but principal Scott Seaman said it was worth the time and effort.
“If you stand in our parking lot after school and see all the students in their cars, with one hand on the wheel and one hand on their cell phone and they’re looking down at their phone — you would see it’s a worthwhile cause,” Seaman said.
Thurston County Coroner Gary Warnock said that in past talks about driver safety, many middle school students have said they have been in a car in which the driver was texting.
“That tells me it’s either the older sibling or the parents who are texting and driving,” Warnock said. “It’s not a problem – it’s an epidemic.”
While car crashes known to have involved cell phones make up a relatively small percentage of accidents in the state, according to the Department of Transportation, the numbers are not minuscule.
Cell phones were known to be a factor in about 1.1 percent of crashes in the state in 2008, or 898 crashes, according to the data. More than 330 of those crashes were fatal.
Those figures were lower than in 2007, and might represent the effect of a 2008 law that made it a secondary violation to send a text message from behind the wheel or to hold a phone to the ear while driving. That meant that drivers could get ticketed for talking or texting only if they were pulled over for something else, such as speeding.
But on June 10, a new law will make those offenses a primary violation, meaning law enforcement officers can pull a driver over if the officer sees the driver breaking the cell phone laws, said Washington State Patrol Trooper Brandy Kessler. The fine is $124.
SENDING THEIR MESSAGE
Wendy and Dan Lerch applaud the new law, after seeing how texting and driving has forever affected their family.
Their daughter had graduated cum laude from Tumwater High School and was a Centralia College freshman who hoped to transfer to a four-year school and major in forensic science.
She held a job at the Tumwater Subway shop and was saving up to move into an apartment with a friend.
Heather was on her way home from work at 10:30 p.m. when she lost control of her car on Littlerock Road, where the speed limit drops from 50 mph to 35. Phone records show that she had been texting within minutes of the crash.
“Hey you and I need to hang sometime ;-)” one of her texts read. “Alright cool :-)”
She read her last message a few minutes before a passer-by called 911 to report the crash. One message on her phone was unread.
It hadn’t crossed Wendy and Dan Lerch’s minds to remind Heather, and her younger brother Brandon, not to send text messages while driving.
“Forever, we were telling our children to drive carefully, to drive safely,” she said. “But that was something we didn’t specifically tell them.”
But now, Wendy Lerch hopes to spread that message and friends tell her that they have changed their habits.
“I will not pick up the phone when I’m in the car,” Wendy Lerch said.
Venice Buhain: 360-754-5445 vbuhain@theolympian.com www.theolympian.com/edblog
