Pictured: Parker Mantia instantly died when a drunk driver struck his family's vehicle in Missouri in 2014. Courtesy: Destiny Klimaszewski.
By Sunni Battin
Destiny Klimaszewski constantly has to work through the tangled mess of bitterness and injustice. Rage and grief are part of the immense weight she says she carries after losing her first husband and high school sweetheart and their son to a drunk driver. And her only coping mechanism is drastic change.
Just as the sun was setting on Sept. 20, 2014, a typical Saturday evening in Missouri for the family of three, Klimaszewski and her then husband Corey Mantia, who had celebrated his 22nd birthday the day before and their only child Parker, 15 months, were driving in their minivan headed to an appointment. Minutes later, they would be struck in a head-on collision by a female drunk driver that crossed the center line and had a record of six prior DUIs (Driving Under the Influence). Parker and the motorist that caused the accident instantly died. Life flighted to a nearby hospital, Mantia would pass away the next day never regaining consciousness and Klimaszewski would be the sole survivor.
“I just can’t wrap my head around why this was able to occur,” Klimaszewski said. “I wonder why nobody stopped her or why she was able to get the keys. I’m angry that there haven’t been any changes and more people have passed since then. I’m angry that this is my mountain to climb and I have to be the one to bring changes. I’m angry the way some people view drinking and driving and Corey and Parker don’t matter enough for other people to truly make a change. They were my entire world.”
In their sophomore year of high school, Klimaszewski and Mantia met and immediately bonded. She says her first love was a natural people person and was compassionate and kind. He was more the extrovert and she the introvert but it meshed well. After three years of dating, they would marry in 2011 and once Parker was born two years later, Klimaszewski would become a stay-at-home mother.
“With Parker, you could just see his peace and his innocence. There was never really any worry and he was completely satisfied with us. We could just walk in a room and you could tell we lit up his world,” she said.
In a hospital room recovering from a concussion with short-term memory loss, Klimaszewski said she was told over and over and over again that her husband and son had died. With staples in her head and a torn disc in her neck, the road to recovery was just beginning. In the aftermath, there were moments where she begged God to let her die and she struggled to find her own identity. Then there is the black floating lines in her vision from her head trauma and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), panic attacks, and anxiety. On Parker’s 10th birthday in June and the days following, she was triggered with flashbacks of the trauma and was so overwhelmed that she had to go to urgent care.
“It’s exhausting and it hurts so bad," Klimaszewski said. "I just want to be okay. I just want to be normal. At end of the day, it follows me everywhere and most times I can manage it and handle it. But then there's other times like his birthday to where there's nothing I can do to get it to go away except for doctor intervention.”
To make some semblance of a senseless and avoidable tragedy, Klimaszewski says she must take action. Getting behind the wheel of a vehicle she says after drinking even the smallest amount of alcohol is reckless and risky. It’s a message she is desperately trying to spread in order to save lives and spare preventable pain and trauma she knows all too well. Her plans include going to law school and fighting for stronger consequences for drunk drivers locally and nationally and working to educate the public about the dangers of driving drunk. Additionally, she recently filmed a documentary about her story, “Beyond the Headlights: The Cost of Drunk Driving.” It will release on her Facebook page on Wed, Nov. 27. Funds for wider distribution of the documentary are currently being raised.
“I’m just a mom and a wife that's passionate about bringing change and justice to her family,” Klimaszewski said. “Right now, it's making connections with the people who know how to make the change and it's making noise. Letting people hear that it's not just happening to me. It’s killing or injuring somebody every 78 seconds. It's educating people that this is way more common than they think and you can become impaired much quicker than you believe you can. It’s changing the social and society acceptance.”
A few years after she lost her family, Klimaszewski got a restart and rebirth in life. She remarried and now has two young children.
For more information:
Facebook:
Destiny Klimaszewski
To watch the trailer:
https://beyondtheheadlights.com
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