Diane Shuler
The internet is full of all kinds of information- some fascinating, some mindlessly entertaining and some just plain stupid. Sometimes I will happen upon an article that really speaks to me. Usually I'll email it on to one or two people; if it really affects me it may find it's way into conversation. A story I came across a couple of weeks ago left a deep, searing mark on my psyche.... I'm still thinking about it.
Almost a month has passed since Diane Shuler killed her child, her neices, three strangers and herself.
At the end of July a minivan driven by a mother, carrying five children under the age of ten collided with another car, three men inside. Everyone died except one five year old boy. The minivan was travelling the wrong way on a freeway in New York. The mother, we would all soon learn, was drunk and stoned. It is hard to write those words without tears blurring my sight.
News articles about Diane Shuler say that no one close to her knew of her struggle with alcohol. Her husband claims he never saw her drink and one neighbor said, "She was a phenomenal mom. She never let the kids out of her sight." She held a senior position at Cablevision, was happily married, lived in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs- she had all the trappings of a normal life. But the recently released toxicology reports reveal the horrifying lies she seemed to be hiding. Her blood alcohol levels showed she had the equivalent of ten drinks in her system and that she had smoked marajuana an hour before the crash.
It was a Sunday morning. And she was carrying in her hands the lives of children- her own and her brother and sister-in-laws. How could she be so selfish? I've wondered many times since first reading about this story. A broken bottle of Absolut was found amidst the wreckage. It is unfathomable that she could've struggled so invisibly with alcoholism, that her own husband didn't know. Yet, I can't imagine if he did that he ever would've allowed her in the car alone with their kids. Mostly I cannot understand how she could care so little for the lives of her family. I get that alcoholism is a disease. I just find it horribly tragic that her illness took the lives of seven innocent people.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.reimer17aug17,0,2104310.column
Almost a month has passed since Diane Shuler killed her child, her neices, three strangers and herself.
At the end of July a minivan driven by a mother, carrying five children under the age of ten collided with another car, three men inside. Everyone died except one five year old boy. The minivan was travelling the wrong way on a freeway in New York. The mother, we would all soon learn, was drunk and stoned. It is hard to write those words without tears blurring my sight.
News articles about Diane Shuler say that no one close to her knew of her struggle with alcohol. Her husband claims he never saw her drink and one neighbor said, "She was a phenomenal mom. She never let the kids out of her sight." She held a senior position at Cablevision, was happily married, lived in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs- she had all the trappings of a normal life. But the recently released toxicology reports reveal the horrifying lies she seemed to be hiding. Her blood alcohol levels showed she had the equivalent of ten drinks in her system and that she had smoked marajuana an hour before the crash.
It was a Sunday morning. And she was carrying in her hands the lives of children- her own and her brother and sister-in-laws. How could she be so selfish? I've wondered many times since first reading about this story. A broken bottle of Absolut was found amidst the wreckage. It is unfathomable that she could've struggled so invisibly with alcoholism, that her own husband didn't know. Yet, I can't imagine if he did that he ever would've allowed her in the car alone with their kids. Mostly I cannot understand how she could care so little for the lives of her family. I get that alcoholism is a disease. I just find it horribly tragic that her illness took the lives of seven innocent people.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.reimer17aug17,0,2104310.column
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