Kimberly

Warning: Graphic Content

She was young. A beautiful blonde girl in high school, popular, headed to Penn State. Had so much going for her. Kimberly was friendly and never let the small-town popularity go to her head.

Nobody remembers what year it was when that party took place. They say 1973, perhaps 1974. It really makes no difference.

The party at a friend’s house was pretty cool. She was part of a big family in the Lake Mohawk, Sparta, New Jersey area. It remains small to this day.

Highway 15 goes through there, and when she left the house, a witness recalls that as the route she had to take.

There were two ways to leave the party house. Kimberly took the easiest way to Route 15.

Another party attendee was drunk. And worse, to be told not to drive by friends in those days meant that you were so visibly drunk that you had trouble walking. They told him to get a ride. He didn’t. He got into his Camaro and left, going in the opposite direction Kimberly had just driven.

The Camaro hit Kimberly’s Carolla head-on.

The witness, along with others, rushed outside. The Camaro had not gone airborne, but it didn’t really matter. Somehow, and early 70s Toyota cars were notoriously small and not particularly roadworthy, the top was smashed or compressed downward.

It was a terrible sight. The immediate sense was that the witnesses were going to find their friends seriously injured. The medical student working an ambulance job in preparation for nursing school knew better. She did not even want to look, but had to.

The radio was still blasting. The song was Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues.

Kimberly Elg had such beautiful hair. Long, blonde. It would never be blonde again. Her head was covered in blood. She had been killed instantly.

The teen in the Camaro suffered broken ribs, broken pelvis and a broken leg. He spent months in the hospital and was full of guilt and heartbreak that he had killed a friend. For a time, Kimberly’s friends were bitter. They avoided him. Eventually most came around. So did he.

Well before MADD existed, he traveled for years around to high schools, telling his ghastly story to students and, people like to believe, probably saved lives.

Kimberly Elg was laid to rest while everyone else had to move on with a broken heart and that terrible image in their minds.

The witness went on to become a dedicated and brilliant nurse, but there was damage. Over the next few decades, she saw horrible things while working the ER and Trauma units, but to this day, cannot get the image of Kimberly Elg out of her mind.

She has tried to listen to Nights in White Satin, but, also to this day, she can’t.

As we fast approach prom season, let this post make parents feel the loss Kimberly’s parents did. Imagine getting a phone call or a knock on your door, only to open it and find a police officer there with a sad look on their face, at which you know without a word being spoken. Chaperone events. Restrict your child from parties where alcohol is very likely to be on hand. Host alcohol-free parties. Do whatever you must to make sure they live long enough to hear their first lecture at Penn State University.

Because when it’s too late?

You lose everything. And you will never be the same.

No one ever is.

Never.