Thanksgiving Day is usually known for food fun family and giving thanks.
But as the holiday approaches, police are warning people not to drink and drive. It is something one mother said changed her life forever.
Sandra Love is celebrating not only the Thanksgiving holiday, but also the lives of the loved ones she lost to a drunk driver 17 years go on Thanksgiving Day.
"It was a typical Thanksgiving Day, the day went really well and so at the end of the day we said our goodbyes and we started home," Love said.
While trailing her family, back home an accident happened that forever changed her life.
"I'm like talking laughing and suddenly all of the laughing is gone, I'm looking at my family’s life being taken right before my eyes," Love said.
Love said after leaving Killeen just outside of Cameron, a drunk driver crashed head-on into her parents' car killing four members of her family.
"My father was deceased, my mother was deceased, my five-year-old son was deceased, my daughter was injured very, very severely," Love said.
Her 15-year-old daughter later died because of the crash, along with the drunk driver, and one passenger in the other vehicle. A devastation that would last a lifetime.
"I would rather have lost my own life than to see my children leave this world. It changed my life," Love said.
According to TxDOT, almost every 20 minutes someone is hurt or killed in a crash involving alcohol in Texas. However, since the accident, Love has made it a lifetime duty to bring awareness to DWI fatalities and the impact it has on our country.
“I don't want to see another family lose a mother, a father, a daughter, and a son. I don't want to see any other fatalities due to something that is 100-percent preventable,” Love said.
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