Trista Gliedt wasn’t even 25 years old when a drunk driver hit her vehicle and killed her. She and her fiancé Adam had just picked out a home.

He knew from the moment they started going out that she was the one. “I loved her. I was going to spend the rest of my life with her,” Adam said.

She had just left to run a couple errands when Adam heard the sirens. He knew immediately something was wrong, but his father told him to calm down. They drove to the scene of the crash and the road was closed.

Adam said he saw a firefighter go to get the Jaws of Life, but he wasn’t doing it in a frantic way. “He was just trying to get a body out of the car.”

He soon learned the truth — that the woman he loved was dead.

“One day we were picking out a house and then a casket,” Adam said.

That was just one of the stories shared with 750 Hunting Hills High School Grade 9 and 10 students during a Mothers Against Drunk Driving presentation Wednesday. A video on three large screens brought the students stories of real families who had lost loved ones to drunk drivers.

Nikita-Kiran Singh, a Grade 9 student at Hunting Hills High School, said hearing the families responses made her sad, knowing that the victims’ parents and siblings now have to live without their daughter or son, sister or brother.

“It was so tragic and it didn’t have to happen. It could have been prevented,” she said.

Grade 10 student Camille Germain said she would never drink and drive, but she thinks the video could help others in the school. Germain felt the worst for one young man named Jimmy who didn’t drink and drive, but decided to walk home after a party and was hit by a drunk driver. “He still ended up getting hurt because of somebody else’s decision,” Germain said.

The presentation has been taken to schools all over B.C. and Alberta by Ahmad Khan, the western field represenative with MADD Canada. He told students, “It is really easy to chose from right and wrong. Do not end up like one of these stories.”

At the end of the video there was silence and a few people wiped away tears.

Joe Ireland, a Grade 9 student, said the presentation really opened his eyes to what drunk driving can do and how it affects everyone in the world.

It also hit home for Grade 10 student Damien Smith, who just got his licence a month ago.

“The next time I step behind that wheel it will make me really think twice,” Smith said. He said it will also make him stop others from drinking and driving. But he said his rule has always been no drinking and driving.

Karyn Barber, a vice-principal at Hunting Hills High School, said school administration and staff care about students and want them to make smart choices and take care of each other. She said seeing the presentation with their peers will mean students will talk about it with their friends and carry it forward with them.

Contact Stacy O’Brien at sobrien@reddeeradvocate.com