Highland Falls family still reeling from distracted driving tragedy
Nearly two years ago, on March 18, 2017, Aleena Olivia’s world turned upside down.
1508 miles away, in Norman, Oklahoma, Olivia’s mom Linda Irie, 50, niece Brooklynn, 9, and nephew Jace, 5, were killed in a horrific car accident.
They were driving on, Turner Turnpike, near the Wellston exit towards Tulsa on their way to pick up a baby lamb that was to be part of a series of Easter photographs Irie, a photographer, was doing.
There was a car fire on the side of the road about a mile ahead of them that day, and traffic came to a crawl and then stopped. Irie stopped in traffic, and then seconds later was hit by a Ford F350 pickup truck, driven by a 17-year-old, who has said he did not see them. While it hasn’t been determined exactly what happened, distracted driving, possibly involving a cell phone, seems to be the cause.
The two children, Brooklynn and Jace, died instantly, Linda died at the hospital hours after the accident, and a third child in the car, Olivia’s cousin Bella, 6, survived.
The accident remains tied up in court in Oklahoma.
Olivia, a Highland Falls resident with her husband Dan and children Julia and Danny, spends much of her time on the phone with her family and legal representatives there, while the matter is figured out. She and her whole family, are praying for justice for their wife, mother, children and grandchildren, but feel significant frustration over the slow progress of the matter.
Not long after the accident, to occupy some of his time, Olivia’s father, Shawn, created a foundation to not only remember his deceased loved ones, but to try to make some good come of the tragedy. He created the Put It Down Foundation to help educate Americans about how dangerous distracted driving is. The foundation, and accompanying Facebook page, uses the hashtag #putitdown on its social media sites.
It’s Olivia who manages that Facebook page, posting not only details of the accident that killed her mother, but statistics about distracted driving, stories about similar accidents, and family news. There are also many sympathy comments on the page.
Olivia calls distracted driving a “one hundred percent preventable” situation. She says it’s as simple as not looking at your phone while driving, not doing your makeup, not changing the radio station, not eating or drinking, not fiddling with a GPS, not lighting a cigarette, or not dealing with fussy children.
And while she knows everyone is guilty of any of those things occasionally, she hopes that people who see her posts on the Put It Down Facebook page, or who attend one of her father’s presentations, or who just talk to her for a few minutes will make a concerted effort to keep their full focus on the road while driving.
“Public awareness of this nation-wide problem is essential,” she said last week.
The US Department of Transportation said distracted driving led to 3450 deaths in the country in 2016. Six out of 10 teenage crashes involve some sort of distracted driving, statistics say.
Olivia’s dad often works with the Oklahoma Challenge Project — a distracted driving prevention program sponsored by the Oklahoma Highway Office and State Farm. He still has his wife’s Saab, in it’s mangled condition, and takes it with him to events.
“He often starts his remarks with ‘I could get up here and give you all the statistics about distracted driving, but instead, take a look at this car’,” Olivia said.
As the court case continues, Olivia and her family continue to work hard to heal. It’s hardest for her sister Shanee, she says; it was her two children who died.
“She has had a very difficult time,” Olivia said. “To not only lose her children, but our mom at the same time …”
Olivia’s life has changed too, she says, noting that she’s had to work hard to help not only her far-away family heal, but also her own children. The cousins were all close, she said.
“I try to keep their grandmother’s and cousins’ memory alive,” Olivia says.
She says the family’s friends here have helped in the last two years, and thanks those who help share her family’s message to the world.
“It’s a pretty simple concept,” Olivia says on the Facebook page. “Make a decision to save a life and Put It Down while you drive. Put down your phone, or your coffee or those french fries you ordered and just drive.”
Olivia tells a hair-raising side story to her family’s tragedy. Six-year-old Bella, the young cousin who survived the crash, has been consistent in her story from the moment she was pulled from the car until now, Olivia says.
“Bella saw Jesus in the car,” she says. “She has said since day one that the six or seven angels — with big sparkly wings and halos — appeared and two of them wrapped their wings around her. She says Jesus was there, and told her to be calm because it was not her time to go to Heaven.”
Olivia says the child’s words brought a lot of peace to Shanee at the time and continues to do so — “the fact that she is confident they went with Jesus to Heaven is what pulled her through.”