Transcription
[Music] [Music] My name is Grant Hendricks. I'm a trooper with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. I'm at the site of Mariah West's accident. Mariah's vehicle traveled across this median and ended up striking the bridge that you can see behind me.
When I got to the scene, her face was disfigured from sliding down the roadway. It's funny, the first thing I noticed about her was her shoes, lying in the roadway in a large pool of blood. I noticed her shoes and I thought, "This is a young girl." That's the first thing I thought when I saw this. And at that point is when I noticed her cap and gown was still in her car. She was going to graduate the next day. It was just a really horrific scene, all because of a senseless text message. It's just sad. Sorry, it's just [Music] sad.
Ashley would text hundreds of messages every day. That was the way we kept in touch. We would definitely text more than we talked. Mariah was a multitasker extraordinaire. She could text better than anyone I know. She could be having one conversation with me, completely focused, while having a text conversation with somebody else. She would be at school, at home, movies, bowling, driving, not even looking at her phone. It didn't matter where we were, we were constantly texting.
This is my sister. She was looking at my message that I had just sent her. When she looked up, she had clipped the median on the left-hand side of the road. Her truck flipped, and as it was flipping, she was actually ejected through the driver's side door and she landed in the ditch about 300 feet from her truck.
People will tell you over and over again, "It's not your fault." But knowing that you were the person that she was talking to when she was killed, just... knowing that a highway patrol officer wrote in a report that a text message sent at 12:05 is the reason that she is dead is not something that will ever go away. If I could talk to her one last time, I would just say, "I'm sorry."
This is her cell phone. The phone that she used in the accident. Four little letters. That's quite killed [Music] her. People don't realize it could just take 3 seconds. I was going to the movies, and the car just went directly into the tree, and it was a direct collision. I was the passenger. I collided with the tree on my right temple, and I was declared dead on the scene. Three times. I used to be able to drive. I used to be able to go for walks. I used to be able to run around town by myself. I used to have a job. I was normal. All this, I cannot do anymore because they had the text. This is the text message that changed my life forever.
The day before her graduation, my daughter drove to go meet a boy, and she never made it. Today, she would have been 19 years old. Exactly. Mariah never wanted a minute to go by that she wasn't doing something she wanted to do. Everything, all at one time, with friends and family, and just having a good time. That's what she loved. Friends would tell me from school, you know, "The best part of the day at school was Mariah coming down the hall," because she'd stop to give everyone a [Music] [Music] hug.
"Okay guys, in honor of Mariah, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear..." She met a guy, played baseball, and one evening she just spontaneously got in her car and said, "Hey, I'm going to come watch his game." He was texting her to tell her directions of where she needed to go, and I guess she just looked away for too long. "Where, where are you at?" You know, like, that was it.
One of her friends had no idea that she had been in an accident, so he kept texting. We ended up having to send him a text back to say, "Please stop. She's in critical condition in the hospital, and we don't know if she'll even make it." She always worked her magic, you know, and still to this day, without her being here, she's so much still a part of our lives every day. She was our sunshine. She really [Music] was. She was.
It's a simple text message. "Where are you?" Three simple [Music] words. She paid the ultimate price for her actions. I've had to do this more than once. Mariah is not the only victim that I've dealt with. It never gets any easier, and it won't get any easier. [Music] What is worth losing your life over? That text [Music] message. [Music] [Music]