Seven lives lost on Lincoln roads so far this year, a ten-year high for the Capitol City
Seven people have lost their lives on Lincoln roads so far this year.
In fact, the city is looking at a ten-year high for fatal crashes.
That leaves seven families grieving the loss of a loved one taken too soon.
“It’s been surreal,” Amber Bax, whose daughter Jasmyn Chalk was killed in a car crash last month.
“I got a knock on the door around 5:00 a.m. Saturday and an officer told me my daughter was in a really bad accident.”
The car Jasmyn was riding in lost control on 27th street and hit a tree.
Jasmyn died at the hospital.
Jasmyn’s aunt Andrea Irwin says her niece, Southwest High School grad, had a vibrant personality, loved sharks and was known for her sweet smile.
And her bright blue eyes, Amber added through tears.
“Her presence is deeply, deeply missed,” Irwin said.
Her death, like six others on Lincoln roads, many times are preventable.
“Your decisions on the road can affect your life, or someone else’s life,” Bax said.
Sergeant Michael Muff with the Lincoln Police Department heads the traffic unit. He said this many fatal crashes back to back doesn’t happen very often.
“It’s hard dealing with any death,” Muff said.
He said the most common causes of crash fatalities are speed and drugs or alcohol.
“What people need to realize is they’re driving a dangerous vehicle– it gets us from place to place every day and we become very compliant with it,” Muff said.
That makes it even more important that drivers are safe behind the wheel, he said.
“Wear your seatbelt, slow down and be attentive,” Muff said.
He adds- don’t drink and drive.
Bax doesn’t know if anything could have changed the outcome of her daughter’s life…
“Like if she was wearing her seatbelt,” she said.
But she said she knows safer driving can save other’s.
In their daughter’s memory– in honor of a life ended too soon– seven lives- ended too soon on Lincoln’s roads this year, she just asks; “Think twice.”
