MISSION VIEJO : Tears Underline Risk of Drunk Driving

With tears filling his eyes, James Rockwell told Mission Viejo High School students Friday of his drunk driving accident that left him with permanent brain damage.

Some students wept as they listened to his story.

Rockwell was a 16-year-old honor student and popular football player at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills when the accident occurred on Feb. 17, 1984. He spent six months in a hospital--the first six weeks in a coma.

Now 25, Rockwell is a communications student at Cal State Fullerton, and he travels to high schools throughout Orange County hoping students will learn from his misfortune.

Recalling the events preceding the accident, Rockwell said he ditched school to binge drink at a friend’s home. Later, he drank at another friend’s home and at a party that night. When he left the party, he drove into a telephone pole after swerving to avoid a head-on collision with another car. He and two passengers flew through the windshield.

“My car slammed on top of my head, causing my brain stem injury,” said Rockwell. The right side of his face is paralyzed, he bears a scar on his forehead and his right eye only opens halfway.

His two passengers were also injured. One was hospitalized three months but has since recovered, Rockwell said.

Rockwell’s speech is raspy.

“I can’t smile, and I can’t see 20-20. I walk kind of funny, I look kind of funny and I talk kind of funny, but I was just like you. If you make the wrong decisions too, you will end up like me or worse,” he said, pointing to himself. The school’s auditorium was filled with silent students.

“I really wish I wasn’t in my accident, and I can’t blame anybody other than myself for the stupid decisions I made,” the Fullerton resident said.

Ryan Bigby, 18, sat pensively as he watched Rockwell talk. “He doesn’t just make me think twice, but three or four times about what I should do. I don’t want to end up like him,” he said.

“Alcohol and adolescents don’t mix. They just don’t go together,” Rockwell said, adding that as he lay in a puddle of his own blood, he was unidentifiable.

Rockwell said he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics and taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where a weak heartbeat was detected. His blood alcohol level was 0.27%, nearly three times the legal limit at the time. It would have exceeded today’s legal limit of 0.08% by nearly 3 1/2 times.

After years of physical therapy, Rockwell decided to spread his message so that others might be spared the trauma he suffered.

He said peer pressure led him to drink, but he made the choice to drive while drunk.

“I’m not completely independent. I gave that up because of my decisions. . . . I don’t want you to make the same mistakes,” he said.

One of the consequences of his accident is the inability to drive, Rockwell said. He paid $25 for a train ride, two bus rides, and a taxi and spent almost three hours getting to the school.

“Alcohol is poison,” he said. “It’s evil. I gave up a lot of conveniences. That’s part of the stakes when you drink and drive. Throwing that away is a stupid, stupid thing. Don’t be a fool.”

Rockwell was invited to speak to the school’s 10th-graders, who are learning to drive, and seniors in hopes that they won’t drink and drive, said Jean Jerome, the school’s activities director.

“Just seeing and listening to (Rockwell), you can see how bad it was,” said Kristin Stowe, 18, a member of the school’s Students Against Drunk Driving club. “He’s trying to get out the message that you shouldn’t drink and drive and I think it really hit home.”