Breanna Remer was drunk — speeding, texting and not wearing a seat belt — when she exited a freeway in Oakdale. She misjudged the curve, and her red Chevrolet Cavalier went off the ramp, struck a tree, flipped and landed 70 feet off the road. Marks on the concrete showed where tire rims had cut into the pavement. Remer, who was 19, did not survive.
That was 15 years ago, but Remer's parents and sister are still reliving the horror of that day and the stark reminder that comes with an empty chair every year at holiday gatherings.
"It's not something you get over, move on or forget," Pam Remer said Tuesday during a news conference at her daughter's graveside in Cottage Grove Cemetery, where the state Department of Public Safety kicked off its annual campaign to crack down on impaired driving during the holiday season. "We are sentenced to a lifetime of pain because of the choices she made. Please make plans for a sober ride. You don't want to be us."
In the past five years, law enforcement officers have cited more than 12,230 motorists for impaired driving from the day before Thanksgiving — known as "Blackout Wednesday" — to New Year's Eve, a period when students return home from college and go drinking with friends they haven't seen for months.
Since 2016, 26 people have died in drunken driving-related crashes during the holiday DWI extra enforcement period, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. This year, police from more than 300 agencies statewide will be watching for impaired drivers, and not just those who have had too much to drink.
Drivers on drugs and prescription medications are rising "at an alarming rate," up 58% in the past three years, said Sgt. Tyler Milless, a drug recognition expert with the State Patrol. There were 2,025 drug-related arrests in all of 2020, he said.
"If it makes you feel different, you will drive different," he said.
Breanna Remer's death did not happen during the holiday crackdown — she died Nov. 11, 2006 — but the pain is just as real. She was going 99 mph when she went off the ramp from northbound Interstate 694 to Hwy. 5 at 3 a.m. She had a blood-alcohol content of 0.13%, almost twice the legal limit to drive. Bad choices spelled her death.