I Have Been an ER Nurse for 29 Years. I Have Told Too Many Mothers Their Child Did Not Survive the Drive Home.

I have been an ER nurse for 29 years. I have told too many mothers their child did not survive the drive home. Every one of them could have saved their child's life.

I am writing this because I cannot sleep. I have a 26 year old daughter who texted me 14 minutes ago. I will not allow her to drive home.

The mothers I have watched lose their children would have given anything for a life saving text like that.

I am going to tell you what I know.

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My name is Karen Wallace.

I am 58 years old. I have worked at a hospital in central Illinois for the last 29 years. I have been married to my husband Robert for 34 years. We have three adult children.

Sarah is 32. She teaches third grade.

Michael is 29. He is an architect.

Emma is 26. She writes software.

None of them have ever had a DUI. None of them are reckless. None of them are the kind of adult children any mother would describe as a problem.

That is the entire reason I am writing this.

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Every mother I have stood next to in the hospital had the same kind of child I have.

Responsible. Successful. Sober most of the time. The kind of son or daughter who would never describe themselves as someone who drinks and drives.

That is not who dies on a Saturday night on a country road. The reckless ones are not in my ER as often as you think.

The ones who are in my ER are the ones who had two beers at a barbecue and felt completely fine. The ones who had three glasses of wine at a wedding. The ones who drank with friends the night before and woke up not fully sober Sunday morning. The ones who had a couple cocktails at their book club. The ones who told their mother on the phone an hour earlier that they were doing great.

They were doing great. They felt great. They were also at .09.

There is a thing about a blood alcohol of .08 that mothers do not know.

You cannot see it.

A 28 year old man or woman at .08 walks like a sober person. Speaks like a sober person. Eyes clear. Can count backward from 100 by sevens. Can hold a conversation about work. Can recite a license plate from memory.

They look fine because at .08 they ARE fine in every way you can observe across a dinner table.

They just cannot drive.

The visible signs of impairment that mothers have been taught to look for — the slurred words and the unsteady walk and the glassy eyes — do not appear in most drivers until .14 or higher. By the time a mother can SEE her child is drunk, her child is at almost twice or three times the legal limit.

Almost no one who dies on the road is at .14. The deaths happen at .08 to .12.

Your responsible adult child cannot tell when they are at .09 instead of .07. Your eye cannot tell either. Their friends cannot tell. Their coworker cannot tell. Their fiancé cannot tell.

There is only one thing that can tell. It is a device like the SoberSense Pro, for example.

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I bought four of them 14 months ago.

I bought them after I made the mistake that has kept me awake for the year and three months since.

Michael came to Sunday dinner two days after his bachelor party. He had slept eight hours the night before. He had eaten breakfast that morning. He had driven 90 minutes to my house without a problem. He looked completely fine.

He told me at dinner he was good. He had only had a beer with lunch. I let him drive home at 8 PM.

That night I could not sleep.

I did not know what he had actually drunk at his bachelor party Saturday night. I had not been there. I had not asked the right questions. I had trusted his face at my dinner table on Sunday.

I lay in bed thinking about the 60 mothers I had stood next to at the hospital. Every single one of them had trusted her child's face. Every single one of them had asked the questions and gotten the answers and let the child leave.

I got up at 4 AM. I ordered four SoberSense Pro Breathalyzers on my phone in the kitchen. One for me. One for Sarah. One for Michael. One for Emma.

I gave them to my kids the following Sunday.

I did not lecture them. I did not ask them to promise me anything. I told them to keep the device in whatever bag or pocket they took with them to events where there would be drinking. Coatcheck. Glove compartment. Purse. Backpack.

I told them I was not going to ask them anymore if they were okay to drive.

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Emma went to her coworker's wedding 11 months later.

She is 26 years old. She rarely drinks. She had three glasses of wine across four hours at the wedding.

She blew into her SoberSense Pro at the coatcheck before she left.

It read .09.

The legal limit is .08.

She had felt completely fine. She had walked normally to the coatcheck. She had spoken normally to the attendant. She had no idea she was over.

She called her fiancé to pick her up. She left her car at the venue. She texted me from his car at 11:18 PM.

I still have that text.

I was at home asleep when she sent it. I was 90 miles from the venue. I had no way to know what Emma had drunk that night. I had no way to ask her the question.

The device was the thing that asked. And possibly saved her life.

The hardest call I have been in the room for was four months ago.

The son was 28. The mother was 60. He had been at his fantasy football draft at a friend's house. The mother did not know he was out drinking that night. He had not told her. He was 28 years old. He did not have to.

He had three beers across two hours. He told his friends he was fine. He had felt completely fine. He drove home. He hit a tree.

He died at 11:47 PM.

I was in the room when the doctor told the mother. She was wearing a blue terry cloth bathrobe. She had been in bed when she got the call.

She said something to me at the foot of the bed that I have not been able to put down.

She had raised him right. She had given him the lecture. She had trusted him. She had been a good mother for 28 years.

She had not given him a device.

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Every mother I have watched lose a child has said some version of the same sentence at the hospital.

I did not know where he was.

I trusted him to call me if he could not drive.

I had no way of knowing he had been drinking.

These are not negligent mothers. These are mothers who did everything we have all been taught a responsible parent does. They asked the questions. They gave the lectures. They trusted the answers.

The answers were not the problem. The answers were always "I'm fine."

The problem is that "I'm fine" is wrong by .03 or .04 sometimes. The mother has no way to check. The child has no way to check. The friends have no way to check.

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I have had a new rule in my family for 14 months.

None of my three adult kids tell me they are fine anymore.

They send me a number.

Sarah texts me from her book club. Michael texts me from his fantasy draft. Emma texts me from her work events and weddings. I get a number after every event where they drink. They send it before they get in the car.

And on the nights they do not text me, they are still using the device. They blow into it in the parking lot. They blow into it at the coatcheck. They check their own real number before they ever turn the key. They have stopped guessing.

I have received 47 numbers in 14 months.

11 of them were over .08.

All 11 resulted in the kid calling an Uber, a fiancé, or a sibling for a ride. None of them resulted in a drive.

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If you are a mother of an adult child reading this, I want you to know something.

Your child is not the reckless one I am writing about. Your child does not drink and drive. Your child is the responsible one. The kind one. The successful one. The one you raised right.

That is exactly who I am writing about.

The mothers in my ER did not lose reckless children. They lost responsible children who guessed wrong about a number they had no way to measure.

You can change that for your own family this week.

Get a device like a SoberSense Pro, for example, for each of your adult children. Tell them to put it in the bag or pocket they take to weddings, work events, fantasy drafts, bachelor parties, barbecues, and game nights. Not the kitchen drawer. The bag they take with them.

Then change the conversation.

Stop asking if they are okay to drive. They will tell you yes. They will believe it. They will be wrong.

Make them check their real number to know if they are really okay to drive.

Make it the new normal in your family. Make it boring. Make it the thing you ask the way you ask if they got home safe.

Your kid will roll their eyes the first three times. The fourth time they will send you a number that surprises them. They will call a ride. They will text you from the back seat.

You will not get the call I have been in the room for too many times.

It costs $85. It uses the same fuel cell sensor I have seen carried by every state trooper who has come into my ER for the last 19 years. I asked one of those troopers last spring to test mine against his on the side of the road outside the hospital after his shift. He blew into mine. I blew into mine. He blew into his. They read within .003 of each other. He told me that was as close as two devices get. He told me to trust mine.

It will tell your child a number that their feeling cannot tell them.

I am not writing this to scare you. I am writing this because I have watched the gap between "I feel fine" and "I am over the limit" kill too many responsible adult children whose mothers did everything right.

The device is the only thing that closes the gap.

Put one in your child's bag this week. Send them the link to this article. Tell them you do not want their judgment. You want the number.

If your adult child has ever told you they are fine before driving home from anywhere, I would like to hear from you below. The mothers who do not get the call I make are the mothers who started asking for the number. The more of us who talk about this, the fewer of us who get the call.

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