Mark Sterner reveals his Spring Break mistake to Mizzou students

by Kielly Jewell, posted Oct. 14, 2009

As a part of Alcohol Responsibility Month, students filled Jesse Auditorium to capacity to hear Mark Sterner’s message about drinking and driving on Oct. 6. He doesn’t preach to those he speaks to. He just tells his story and shows the video that he and his friends made on the night of March 4, 1994.

Sterner opened his program with several questions about the students’ alcohol involvement. He asked if anyone had ever done anything stupid while drunk, or if they woke up the next morning and had no idea how they got there. Many students raised their hands and even cheered and laughed on some occasions. When Sterner asked if anyone had killed their best friend while driving drunk, no one raised their hand, except for Sterner.

While on spring break in Sanibel Island, Fla., Sterner and four of his fraternity brothers traveled to at least one bar every night. They all took a turn as the designated driver so they could get home safely. They did this for the first five nights, but on the sixth night everyone had taken their turn and no one wanted to miss out on the last night of fun. The five boys decided that at the end of the night, they would decide who the least drunk person was and then they would drive back to the motel.

Sterner showed a homemade video to the audience that he had recorded that night of all of them drinking and having a good time at the bar. Fifteen minutes after Sterner stopped filming, three of his best friends were killed.

The next thing that Sterner remembers is waking up in a hospital bed with his family surrounding him.

“I wanted to know how my family got there and where my friends were,” Sterner said. “The only thing I could think about was my friends are dead, and I just wanted to die too.”

As it turned out, Sterner was chosen to drive home after their night out at the bar. On their way back to the motel, the car crashed. None of the boys had on seatbelts and were all ejected from the vehicle. The responding emergency personnel said that if they would have had on their seatbelts, they would have all lived.

As the driver, Sterner was charged with three felony counts of manslaughter. His blood alcohol content was measured as .17, while everyone else had a BAC of .22 and above. His mug shot was taken right from his hospital bed. He was sentenced to two years at the Lee County Jail, where he spent his days with “murderers, rapists and thieves.”  

“I was going to be the first one in my family to graduate from college,” Sterner said. “Now I am going to be the first one in my family to go to prison.”

More than the fear of prison, Sterner thought about all of the things that his friends would miss out on in life.

“Would they be married now?” Sterner said. “What would their children look like and where would they be living? Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my friends.”

Jessica Gamm, diagnostic medical ultrasound sophomore, said she thought Sterner was a captivating speaker.

“I’ve been to a lot of these things, and he was one of the best that I have heard so far. He was really straightforward and honest about his experience,” Gamm said.

Drivers are less likely to use seat belts when they have been drinking, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “In 2005, 64 percent of the young drivers of passenger vehicles involved in fatal crashes who had been drinking were unrestrained. Of the young drivers who had been drinking and were killed in crashes, 74 percent were unrestrained.”

The NHTSA also reports that 86 percent of people killed in alcohol-related crashes were considered legally drunk, having a BAC of 0.08 or greater.

Sterner said he knows that students just think that his story is sad and that it won’t ever happen to them.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re smarter. Maybe you’re luckier,” Sterner said at the end of his program. “But then again, maybe you’re not.”

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