In the News

Mother doesn't want others to feel her pain
Telegraph-Journal
By Tammy Scott-Wallace
June 22, 2010

BELLEISLE CREEK - Every day this time of year Helena Berryman closes her eyes and prays that another life isn't lost to drunk driving.

Helena Berryman of Belleisle Creek is trying to reach out to young drivers this graduation season to keep them safe as they celebrate. She had bumper stickers made, featuring her late daughter's face, as a reminder that people die when they drive drunk or get in the car with someone who has been drinking.

"Young people are graduating and there are so many parties going on, I just hold my breath," she said.

Berryman knows, after all, there is no greater pain than losing a child.

It was this month two years ago when her 19-year-old daughter, Shane Lee Berryman, got in the car with a drunk driver. It was decision that ended her life.

The driver of the vehicle, 24-year-old Daniel Northrup, is currently serving a three-and-a-half year prison term in the Springhill Institution.

Berryman carries what she sees as a life sentence of heartache over losing her youngest child. And while Shana wasn't attending a graduation party that night, there's a curse Berryman believes hovers over young people this time of year. Whether its graduation parties or the carefree feeling that comes with the arrival of summer, teens and young adults are partying, and they're drinking.

Regardless of the reason for the celebration, too many young people die as a result of drunk driving over these current weeks, she insists.

In her attempt to reinforce the realities of getting behind the wheel after having a few too many, she has had bumper stickers made for students of her daughter's former school, Belleisle Regional High School, friends and family, and the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) organization.

The oval stickers carry a photo of her daughter and the short timeline in which she lived, and reads a simple but too often ignored message "Please drive responsibly. Don't drink and drive."

"It is such a desperate feeling when you see kids are just not getting it. I just want to try to reach at least some people," Berryman said.

"My heart goes out to the families every time I hear another story of a young person dying. Without fail, you always hear of something tragic around graduation time."

She said her family has never been the same since that moment a police officer knocked on the door of their Belleisle Creek home in the wee hours of June 22, 2008.

That moment changes a family forever, and she only wishes young people could erase the belief that "it will never happen to me.

"There will always be parties and there will always be alcohol, but if they would just make that phone call before they make that decision to drive or get in the vehicle with someone who has been drinking," she said. "As parents, we're always telling them whenever they leave the door ?I don't care where you are, call me and I'll come and get you' but kids seem to feel invincible. They get it in their heads that they're not far from home, or they are fine to drive, or that something bad would never happen to them.

"I remember Shana saying ?Yes mom, yes mom' as if she was tired of hearing the same thing over and over but you want to get through to them," she added, "because once they leave that door, you never know."

Recent news of impaired driving crashes in Sussex and Riverview that have claimed the lives of young drivers and passengers shake her to the core.

"You just feel so desperate to get the message out," Berryman said. "I don't want any parent going through what we're going through. You just don't know when you will get that knock on the door and your world will fall apart.

"They say in time it gets easier, but it doesn't. It gets harder."