SPOKANE, Wash – Hunter Hall said he and his brother Noah were two weeks away from living their dream of finally getting a new place together. But that dream became a nightmare when a drunk driver hit his brother and infant nephew in early August.
“I didn’t know for the first week if he was going to make it, and it was weighing on me pretty heavily,” said Hall.
Hall said seeing his brother in the hospital will be forever ingrained in his memory, “wires, all sorts of machines. Honestly, I never want to have to see anybody go through something like that again because it was just kind of heartbreaking.”
Noah was hospitalized for a month and treated in the ICU twice with 15 broken ribs, fractured vertebrae, and lacerations on his liver and spleen. Noah’s son had a fractured skull, broken ribs, and fractured vertebrae.
As for the driver, Hall said, “I think he came out pretty much unscathed.”
Washington State Patrol Sgt. Greg Riddel said this is common. “We think that it’s a victimless crime because we’re drinking, and ‘I’m only going to hurt myself,’ but it’s basically a bomb going down the roadway and just waiting for something to happen.”
DUIs are down in the Spokane Region, but deaths as a result of DUIs are up. WSP has responded to 35 collisions resulting in deaths, 12 of those were a result of impaired driving. Those deadly crashes highlight the importance of tackling impaired driving.
“We’re still having those people that take that chance. And they run that risk, and when you run that risk, time runs out eventually. And something devastating happens,” said Riddell.
Hall said he hopes the driver reflects on the impact his choices had on their family, and that “maybe he thinks twice about opening up another bottle.”
If you’d like to help out Noah and his son, Hall has started a GoFundMe to help with the medical and legal costs.
