When Trish Gingras looks at a black-and-white photograph of her sister Crystal above the fireplace in her living room, she recalls a life of energy and spirit.
“She was out to have fun every day,” Gingras said. “I try to be a little bit like her every day.”
Crystal Marie Lutz’s life was cut short nearly four years ago in a single vehicle crash north of Osoyoos.
Gingras hopes her sister’s legacy will help people in Crystal’s home community of Osoyoos and throughout the South Okanagan make choices that lead to long, full lives.
On April 14, Corey Supernak, the man who was behind the wheel of the 1993 Toyota pickup truck Crystal was in when she died near Dead Man’s Lake, pleaded guilty in Penticton provincial court to a charge of dangerous driving causing death, sparing Crystal’s family from the additional trauma of a long-awaited trial.
In the early morning hours of July 23, 2005, Supernak was following an ambulance north on Hwy. 97 towards Oliver’s South Okanagan General Hospital.
The woman in the ambulance was the mother of two young women in Supernak’s backseat and she was suffering symptoms believed to be a heart attack.
Crystal, who was 20, was sitting sideways in the truck’s passenger seat, her body turned so she could hold the hands of the twin girls who were scared for their mother’s life.
Because of the way she was seated, Crystal’s seatbelt only stretched across her lap.
Driving over the speed limit, Supernak lost control of the truck at a turn near the lake and Crystal hit her head as the truck rolled and ended up in the water.
Although Supernak tried to resuscitate her, Crystal had already succumbed to her injuries.
After he made the plea, Supernak, now 24, was handed a conditional sentence and for the next 18 months he’ll have to observe a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
He can’t consume alcohol or enter any business serving alcohol and he is prohibited from having a driver’s licence for the next four years.
Seven other charges, including impaired driving causing death, were stayed after Supernak made a plea bargain.
Although they went through four years of anger, sadness and frustration as Supernak’s case slowly weaved through the justice system, two of Crystal’s sisters, including her twin, Emerald, and her parents shared hugs with Supernak after the court appearance.
“Since meeting Corey, as I never met him until the (court appearance)… the frustration with what he did substantially subsided by meeting him and seeing his pain,” Gingras said, adding that when she read the family’s victim impact statements in court, Supernak was “shaking” with remorse.
“I think the healing part for the family was him pleading guilty.”
Gingras said the family is now looking towards the future and they told Supernak to “honour” them by adhering to the conditions of his sentence.
“We wanted him to make us proud,” she said, adding that the family also encouraged Supernak to do right by his young son.
The family also wants to make sure what happened to Crystal and Supernak doesn’t happen to anyone else.
“Ultimately, I don’t want her death to be wasted,” Gingras said.
Using money donated to the family by the Osoyoos community and a visiting Australian hockey team, the family will be running ongoing advertisements in this newspaper urging people to make good choices when they’re figuring out how to get home after drinking.
The family intends for the advertisements to come out around times when people may drink more such as high school graduation time, Christmas, New Years and summer long weekends.
Gingras wants people to plan ahead and spend the roughly $15 it takes to get a cab ride home instead of getting into a car with alcohol in your system.
“Is $15 worth the rest of your life?” she said. “If you are wondering if you’ve had too much to drink to drive, you probably have.
“If you’re getting a ride home with somebody, make sure they’re OK to drive.”
Along with a tree and a bench at Osoyoos’s Lions Park the family set up with some of the donated money they received, the advertisements will forever help keep a piece of the “mischievous, fun-loving girl” in their lives, and hopefully in the lives of the community.
By Paul Everest
Osoyoos Times
