Teen whose boyfriend died in accident warns others about drinking

12:00 AM CST on Sunday, March 19, 2006

By JAMES VAZNIS The Boston Globe

DERRY, N.H. – Having finished her shift ringing up groceries at Market Basket, 17-year-old Haley Cyr eagerly drove to a friend's house Nov. 4 for a party. Her boyfriend, Carl Burke, was already there, and Ms. Cyr expected him to spoil her with a warm embrace and kisses, she wrote in her college essay last fall.

Instead they got into a fight.

Mr. Burke, who she says was drinking, wanted to drive to Wendy's for some food and wanted her to come with him. Ms. Cyr, who was sober, thought it would be better if she drove, but he repeatedly refused the offer. He accused her of not trusting him; she walked away.

"Shame and guilt slowly started to make my stomach churn," she wrote in her college essay. "I knew he was going to make a mistake."

With keys in hand, Mr. Burke got into the car with a friend and drove away. Two hours later, Ms. Cyr received a phone call no loved one ever wants to get, a phone call that would change her life. Mr. Burke's car had crashed into a tree.

She rushed to a Manchester hospital, where he died a few hours later. His friend Steven Hodgeman died a few days later.

Derry police are still investigating the car crash but believe alcohol was involved, said Capt. Vern Thomas.

Police are pursuing charges against a 17-year-old Derry youth and his mother for allegedly hosting the Nov. 4 party and for a previous alcohol-related gathering that allegedly took place at the home. As part of that investigation, affidavits supporting arrest warrants for the mother and son state that police removed beer from the car Mr. Burke was driving.

Ms. Cyr, stricken with sadness and regret, made a decision that night. She would share her boyfriend's story with other teens in hopes they would make good decisions about alcohol. Ms. Cyr believes that if she had been drinking that night, she would have gotten into the car with her boyfriend and not thought twice about riding with him. She had done it before.

"What was I thinking all those times?" Ms. Cyr said in an interview at Pinkerton Academy, where she is a senior.

But later she explained: "I trusted him, and things seemed to be so perfect, you don't think anything would go wrong. You don't think anything bad would happen to you."

Ms. Cyr first described her experience publicly in December at a Derry forum on teenage drinking, and then she spoke at three school assemblies in January at Pinkerton Academy, the public high school for 3,500 students from Derry, Hampstead and Chester. Mr. Burke, of Chester, and Mr. Hodgeman, of Derry, had been seniors at Pinkerton.

In the coming weeks, Ms. Cyr will talk with middle school students in Derry about teen drinking. She also got a job with the Community Alliance for Teen Safety, a residents' group in Derry that started almost a decade ago in response to teenage drinking and driving.

"I think what's helping her get through the grief is by talking about the accident," said Deb Boniface, the substance abuse counselor for the Derry Cooperative School District, who is helping Ms. Cyr put together a presentation for middle school students. "She's taken it upon herself to get the message out."

Indeed, Ms. Cyr said, giving the talks has provided her with the strength to move beyond the grief of her boyfriend's death, but she remains devoted to his memory. Around her neck she wears a heart-shaped locket given to her by her friends, with a picture of Mr. Burke inside. On her back, she has a tattoo of Mr. Burke's initials and dates of his birth and death. In her bedroom, she has assembled a shrine of pictures, flowers and little stuffed animals.

One of her most cherished items is a brown and tan baseball hat that slipped off Mr. Burke's head that November night before he got into the car. Ms. Cyr picked up the hat. She had a feeling that she should hold onto it.

Ms. Cyr and Mr. Burke had dated for about six months before the accident. He was her first serious boyfriend, and he made her feel good about herself. When they first started going out, Ms. Cyr said, she suffered from low self-esteem.

"He gave me a new outlook in my life. He picked me up and turned me around. He changed my life for the better," she said. "He taught me to love myself."

They started planning a future. Both would stay in New Hampshire for college. She was going to apply to Southern New Hampshire University, and he wanted to go to New Hampshire Community Technical College.

Everything seemed to be falling into place until that November night.

The argument about who should drive kept going in circles, she said. She was caught off guard. She became angry and disappointed.

But none of those feelings seemed to matter when she got the phone call from a friend about the accident. She had no idea how badly hurt Mr. Burke was. When she arrived at the hospital where Mr. Burke's family had gathered, she learned that the prognosis wasn't good. Mr. Burke was in critical condition, unable to breathe on his own. A broken rib had punctured his lung, and it was filling with blood. Ms. Cyr started crying hysterically.

"I knew this was going to be goodbye," she wrote in her college essay.

Moments later, Ms. Cyr walked into Mr. Burke's hospital room. IVs were strapped to his arm, and tubes were in his throat. She could only imagine his pain. The bitterness she felt earlier that night, she wrote, turned into a feeling she couldn't describe.

"Relief had come over me – relieved to be able to hold his hand for a last time, relieved I could brush my hands through his hair and tell him to be the fighter he is," she wrote.

She told him once again she loved him.

"As I spoke my last words to him, I gathered the strength to kiss his forehead," she wrote. "I knew it was my time to leave his side."

A week after Mr. Burke's death, Ms. Cyr began writing her college essay, which took her two months to complete. She began rethinking her future. She wanted Mr. Burke's life and death to have a purpose. She wanted his story to help other teens avoid mistakes involving drinking. She believes personal stories carry more sway with teens, especially girls, when they are told by other teens.

She said she doesn't think the story will stop teens from drinking, but she does hope it will persuade some teens not to drive drunk or get into a car with a drunk driver.

It's a message, she said, that Mr. Burke would have wanted to get out.

"I feel like he's my motivator," she said, "that he's pushing me to do it."

Distributed by New York Times News Service