RoadSense speaker Heather Charlton talks to SOSS students after her presentation about impaired driving. From left are Grade 8 girls Caprice Brown, Stephanie Matevia, Kiersten Faulkner and Karlee Crampton. Charlton got behind the wheel of a car in 1995 and hit two power poles, killing her best friend and injuring others in the vehicle. Lyonel Doherty photo
Heather Charlton may not want to go there, but if she could remember what happened after leaving a night club on November 18, 1995, it would go something like this:
Her friends screaming over the roar of the engine, hitting the first pole at 150 km/h, her best friend only minutes from dying at that very moment, sliding across six lanes of traffic, hitting the second pole and tearing it out of the ground, the car flipping six times and landing two blocks away from the first pole, and firefighters taking the roof off with the “jaws of life.”
Charlton doesn’t recall any of this, she has only picked up the pieces from police reports and witness accounts.
The emotional details of her story hung heavy inside the gymnasium at Southern Okanagan Secondary School where the youth counsellor addressed the entire student body.
“As a teen, I caused a lot of harm to my community . . . I had no idea that partying could go so terribly wrong.”
It wasn’t long after high school graduation that she and three other girls went to a Vancouver night club. If only she had known that her best friend Maria would die that morning, she never would have slid behind the wheel.
Charlton was barely 19 at the time. She had a larger-than-life attitude and often treated her mother like garbage.
“She had my back (despite the way I treated her).”
High school overwhelmed her at Grade 7. She needed to be “cool,” but that was hard when you had a big nose. How was she going to be cool with a schnoz like that?
Then there was Maria; the light of her life. They had so much in common that it wasn’t funny. Hell, they would have shared the same boyfriend if it was allowed.
“We were so close . . . inseparable,” Charlton recalled.
They were so tight that Charlton didn’t have to knock on Maria’s door during visits. She just walked in.
“Today, I’m not allowed anywhere near her house . . . that is my decision. We moved out of town; I can’t afford walking into her parents (and triggering all that pain again).”
Charlton gave birth to her attitude in Grade 9, when she imitated her peers like a programmed robot . . . like a lemming jumping off a cliff.
The drugs started in Grade 10, and by Grade 12, life was one big party after another.
Another Friday night came, but this one would change her life forever.
They had a blast at the night club. Charlton had five drinks but didn’t feek intoxicated because she was able to walk. So she assumed she was able to drive too.
Charlton hopped behind the wheel, with Maria riding shotgun. Two other girls hopped in the back. Jennifer had been drinking without her parents’ knowledge, so she couldn’t call them for a ride home. She was basically stranded.
“Jennifer made the violent decision to get into the car I was driving.”
After the car finally completed its twisted assault on their lives, both of Jennifer’s arms were broken, with the skin torn off from her wrists to her elbows.
“We may have been street racing (that’s what the police said) . . . the car was caved in so much that they couldn’t get my cousin and friend out of the back seat.”
The last physical contact that Heather and Maria had is when their heads collided during the crash.
“She was madly in love and wanted to travel the world . . . she was the only female race car driver in east Vancouver.”
It was like straight out of a movie, but this time it was real – Charlton crying uncontrollably while banging on her holding cell.
The emotional damage caused by the incident is still a rerun for everyone.
“My mom and my aunt haven’t spoken to each other for 14 years.”
Charlton tried to put so many drugs in her body to take the pain away, but there wasn’t a drug on the planet that worked.
At 39, and with a two-year-old child, she is still trying to make amends by being a motivational speaker for ICBC.
“It’s okay to be insecure and confused, alone and scared. It’s what keeps us alive,” she told her young audience.
Charlton urged the students to love themselves, promising that their struggles will get better.
She also pleaded with them to look after their friends and keep them safe.
For more information about this topic, visit www.udecide.ca or email Charlton at [email protected]
Lyonel Doherty
Oliver Chronicle
