In Shock Podcast

Elana’s Story: Navigating Life After Losing a Child to Impaired Driving

• Teresa Baglietto • Season 2 • Episode 37

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Catch a Safe Ride. Choose Life. Never Drive Impaired.

In this deeply emotional episode of InShock with Teresa Baglietto, Teresa sits down with Elana Korey’s mother to honor the life and legacy of her 20-year-old daughter.

Elana was a beloved daughter, sister, college student, University of Arkansas Razorback, AOII sorority sister, athlete, and animal lover whose life was tragically cut short in 2024 as a passenger in a crash caused by an impaired and reckless driver.

Elana’s mother shares the heartbreaking reality of losing a child, the grief that followed, and the long road of learning how to live after unimaginable loss. She also shares who Elana was beyond the tragedy — joyful, hardworking, loving, full of life, and deeply connected to her family, friends, and animals.

Out of this loss came Ollie’s Angels Foundation, created in Elana’s memory to raise awareness about the deadly consequences of impaired driving and reckless driving, promote safe driving education, support animal shelters, and inspire a culture of accountability and compassion.

This conversation is about grief, child loss, love, faith, community, safe driving, impaired driving prevention, reckless driving awareness, and the small “glimmers” of kindness that help carry a family through the darkest moments.

Guest Contact Info:
To learn more about Ollie’s Angels Foundation to purchase merchandise, or make a tax-deductible donation, visit ollies-angels.org. Donations support education, prevention, community outreach, safer roads, and shelter animals

Thank you for tuning in! I truly appreciate every one of you, whether you’re here for the first time or have been with me from the start.

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SPEAKER_01

Hi everyone and welcome to the show. If this is your first time joining the InShock podcast community, thank you so much for being here. And to those of you who continue to show up every other week for these powerful stories, I am truly grateful. I have a very special guest joining me today. She's going to be sharing an incredibly personal and emotional story. This is a delicate and heartbreaking conversation, one that is centered around an unimaginable loss. I want you to think about this. What if a knock at your front door left you instantly disoriented? One minute your child is building their future, and the next, you're standing face to face with news so devastating it rocks your entire world. How do you survive that kind of loss, the one of a child? How do you keep breathing when your heart breaks in ways words can't describe? Today we honor Elena, a vibrant 20-year-old college student with her whole life ahead of her. She was deeply loved, full of dreams, ambition, laughter. She was an athlete and had endless possibilities ahead of her. And in a single devastating moment, her life was stolen while riding in a car with an impaired driver traveling over a hundred miles per hour. Today, Elena's mother shares the heartbreaking story of losing her precious daughter. But this isn't only a story of devastating loss, it's also a story of unexpected compassion, profound love from complete strangers, and extraordinary moments that helped carry this grieving family forward.

SPEAKER_00

Lana was 20, and she was home when this event happened. She was had been home for the summer from her college. She had just finished her sophomore year, and she was about a week, essentially, we say eight days, but about a week from returning back to college. Her dad was going to drive with her in her car here back to Fayetteville. Um, Elena absolutely loved animals. That's how we have Ollie. We raised all of our kids. Elena is our middle child. She has an older brother and a little brother. We raised our children with an abundance of animals. So we always had animals around us. And she even had more herself. She had hamsters and gerbils, fish, a chameleon. The last thing she wanted was an axolotl. Unfortunately, that didn't get to happen. Our youngest was in college, and we're like, we're going to take a break from dogs because they require so much more care. And then she was like, Hey, mom, can I bring home this dog from a friend of mine? Because he's doing an internship. And if we don't take him home, he's going to have to take him to the shelter. Of course, we said no, bring him home, and we immediately fell in love with him. He's just the best dog ever. And of course, now he's ours because of what happened. Yeah. Um, so yes, very passionate about animals. And Elena was a big helper. She loved helping, not only just to us as a family member, but to her friends. She was a very hard worker. She started working in eighth grade. We called her the professional uh corgi show dog, dog walker. So in our town, a woman actually does have award-winning Westminster corgis. And we just went over there one day when we first moved here, knocked on the door, and she said, Come on back, we'll do a trial run and we'll see how it goes. And Elena was there for six years. So she took care of corgis. Some corgis were meant to be show dogs and some corgis were meant to be family pets. So she learned a lot. I went with her, I spent a lot of time there with her in eighth grade and ninth grade, but she did it up until her freshman year of college, until the lady retired. Um she loved animals like to infinity. One of her very first projects was with rolly polies. Oh my gosh. Yes. So I ordered Rolly Polies off the internet. And so we had a field day with Rolli Poly. So when I tell you she adored animals, everything in between, you know. Um, she was a lot of fun. I know a lot of people may say this about their loved ones, but this is definitely true with Elena on top of being a hard worker, so she was really funny, she was constantly making really silly jokes, you know. And so many things I miss about her, but definitely that. Because she had a way of lightening the mood, you know. We all have our own unique way of dealing with stress and you know, family dynamics, and she just had a beautiful way of just adding that element to our family, you know, her unique style of sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01

Sounds like she had such a big heart to have such love for the volume of animals that she wanted to care for and to bring a new little one home when you were at that point where you were done and just knew you were maxed out. But who would have known that bringing Ollie home had a bigger impact than anyone could have ever known? Elena sounds like she had joy in her heart on a very regular basis and was optimistic based on the way that you described her. You have to be incredibly proud of who she became as a person just to have so much love.

SPEAKER_00

One thing that Robert and I, her dad is Robert, that we nicknamed her very early on was the town mayor. Because we actually have lived in a lot of different places. She was born in Georgia and we left there when she was in kindergarten for Missouri. And then from Missouri, we went to Texas, and then from Texas, we went to Massachusetts. So through all of those moves, she made sure she made connections. And when she actually went to the University of Arkansas, she reconnected to her classmates that she went to school in Texas with.

SPEAKER_01

Can you take me back to that day? What was she doing that particular day before the accident?

SPEAKER_00

She had been staying in Vermont with a friend, and then someone drove impaired and the crash happened.

SPEAKER_01

You said she was home for the summer. So was she there for a weekend with a friend? Was she there for a couple of weeks? Just the weekend. When was the last time you spoke to her before the accident?

SPEAKER_00

That was Friday night. We had taken her out on our boat in Duxbury Bay. Um probably eight or nine o'clock, something like that.

SPEAKER_01

And that was Friday night? Correct. Right. Before she left to go to Vermont. And what day was the accident on? It was Sunday, very early morning. Share what you can about the accident itself. I know you mentioned there's litigation, but she was a passenger in the car with somebody who had had some drinks. I'll just say they were impaired. And this happened in 2024.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. My husband and I were at home. It was Sunday, and we all of a sudden just noticed like all this activity in our driveway. And we're like, what is that? These black SUVs just rolled up. It was crazy, you know, like one right after the other. And we actually thought that something had happened to our son who was in Colorado because he and his long-term girlfriend were driving there to move into their new apartment from Mississippi. So it was quite a long drive for them. So for some reason, we were like, is everything okay with her older brother? Um, of course, you know, that was not the case. And so my husband went to the door and it was the Ducksbury Police Department with the chaplain. And our youngest son was at home, our oldest son was in Colorado. So we knew that there was something wrong with our daughter.

SPEAKER_01

How do they even know to come to your house? How did they find you and know that this was your daughter? I don't know. You open the door, and then what happened? Things were kind of a blur.

SPEAKER_02

I just remember thinking, like, what hospital is she at? Because we will go. And I'm like try not to you know, follow my knees.

SPEAKER_00

And I I just it was so and it still is obviously so emotionally overwhelming. I'm like, what do you what do you mean, you know?

SPEAKER_02

I was trying to call her. I was texting her. And her brother was trying to call her and text her.

SPEAKER_00

Of course she wasn't gonna be able to answer, you know? And it was it was brutal. It's every bit as horrific as you could possibly imagine. It was terrible. It still is having all these people in our house telling us the worst possible thing in the world. Like, what do you mean? You know, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01

Almost like it wasn't real. Correct? All of you were making the phone calls almost to check for yourself. Yeah. I'm so sorry. That's just awful. I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thank you. You know, we had to like start calling, you know, her college, uh, the airplane tickets, you know, hotels, uh, everything. You know, while my husband was taking Elena back to college, I was supposed to go celebrate myself and my my childhood best friend circle. We were all supposed to go to a concert and celebrate all of our birthdays because we're all older, but we've been friends for 40 years. I was supposed to go do that when of course I couldn't.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Was your husband also home when they came to the house? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was a sun Sunday, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Did you know the person that was driving at all? No.

SPEAKER_00

Elaine and I have so many similarities, but if there's one thing that's different, she definitely put herself out there to get to know people. And it's just one of the most unique things about her and Ollie is just part of that, you know, her connecting with people and obviously, you know, connecting us with Ollie.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And tell us about Ollie, the foundation, the nonprofit, and what really drove you to get that started.

SPEAKER_00

Ollie belonged to a friend of hers. He had gotten him as a freshman, as a puppy, and he got this internship in Maryland. And so he was not able to bring Ollie with him. And of course, as I mentioned, Elaine's like, Can I bring him home? And we were like, we're not really sure, but of course, we're like, okay, fine. You know what I mean? It wasn't really, you know, that much convincing. We're like, okay, fine. He's a puppy. I'm like, do you think he's like cats? Because we have cats. And she's like, I think he'll be fine. And he he's been great. So his name is really Oliver, but we Ollie. And we we were able to figure out from her friends and things like that that she really referred to him as her angel. And so that's where the name Ollie's Angels came from for her foundation. And going through something like this, and this is what people say, and I'm in the grief community, is for us, we just had a very strong desire to tell Elaine's story, to try to save lives. And I guess in a way, because of Ollie, it helps to a small degree. It's never going to replace our daughter, but it gives a channel for our love to go because she's not here. You know, and as far as the foundation, obviously the purpose is for to keep our daughter's legacy and memory alive, but to spread awareness and education and and and simultaneously we do support animal shelters and sanctuaries as part of the foundation because that was something so important to her. Um, we've done a few fundraisers for some places across the country. On Cape Cod, we went to a horse sanctuary where animals have been abused. Um, so we went there to support them. And we have some plans for the remainder of 26 to do what we can with some shelters.

SPEAKER_01

Do you do that full time or do you also still hold a job?

SPEAKER_00

I work full-time. This is this is my second job. We we we have each other's support. Yeah, we both kind of like conquer and divide.

SPEAKER_01

Do you determine this month we're gonna focus on a fundraiser for an event? How do you pace yourself?

SPEAKER_00

So that's actually a really great question. And we've really never thought of it like that. We just basically have an idea, it's very fluid, you know what I mean? Like very organic and fluid between Robert and myself. And he's like we have a Chick-fil-A fundraiser coming up in Plymouth, so he's handling that. I'm kind of like trying to shepherd in some newer animal shelters andor sanctuaries. I guess the best way to say is we just divide and conquer.

SPEAKER_01

You have purpose, that's the fire in your belly to do it. It's all for your daughter.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. We feel like every time we are in front of something, hopefully the goal is to save someone's life because you know, we are living proof that it absolutely can't happen to your family. We never in a million years thought we would ever be in this situation. Our daughter had a teen driving package. She wasn't in her car, she was in someone else's car, but she had a teen driving package on there. We gave her extended driving courses and that kind of thing. And you know, what happened happened.

SPEAKER_01

How have you been able to keep going through something like this?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think obviously my children, my two living children and my oldest son's long-term girlfriend, they've been together for six and a half years, a long time. But having their support has been phenomenal. And we all have our moments, but we are all there for each other, and and then focusing on her foundation. Like it gives us purpose, you know. Like we're trying to, like a lot of people in this situation taking your pain and trying to make something of it so that it's lasting and leaves a legacy. One thing about Elena is ironically, one of her favorite proverbs is Corinthians. I think it's actually 16-14 or 13-13, but it's essentially do everything in love. And I came to learn that after she passed. So that is sort of our guiding light is to do everything in love. This is a very brutal thing to have to deal with. It really is the stuff of nightmares. Um, the highway was closed for six hours. She could not be identified for two weeks. We could not bring her home for two weeks.

SPEAKER_01

That's unbelievable. And did you have to identify her in some way, or how did they know it was her?

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Well, we knew it was her, but from what has been told to me, essentially they had to call in very specific forensic dentistry experts.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. The dental records.

SPEAKER_00

Just took time to, I guess, coordinate all of that. Uh uh in Vermont for like a full week every day, ish, and then we had to come home for a couple days and then turn around and go back right back up. It was just bringing her home, getting her out of there, you know. Um, and so that was you know, a very difficult thing to go through. I mean, none of it's good.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm. Did they collide with another car?

SPEAKER_00

The car went off the road and hit a rock wall and it immediately went into flames.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, honey, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02

I can share this.

SPEAKER_00

There have been some very beautiful things that have occurred, and we call them glimmers of different people that have really gone above and beyond to support me and Robert. When Elena was a little girl, when we lived in Missouri, we went on a field trip and we went to this historical house. And at the time I was like, wow, that is kind of really strange. They had a wreath that they still had in a display case that was of hair. And what we learned is that is what people did back then to honor their loved ones who had passed away, if they had their hair. I happened to be on social media as it is, and someone had mentioned they were able, this is another person in my grief community who's in a similar situation as my daughter, um, as they were a passenger to an impaired driving event. However, they were able to save a piece of his hair. The coroner was able to save a piece of his hair for his mother. Because she had asked, is there anything that I can have? Mm-hmm. And so she carries it around with her. And so that's what kind of got me thinking. This was, I mean, honestly, it was this year, and Elena passed away, as you know, in July of 2024. And then when she mentioned that, I remembered this memory I have of Elena going on this field trip. And so I said, huh. Well, I still have Elena's hairbrushes. And so I went to her her makeup vanity, and she had two hairbrushes. There's an artist who does this specialty type of work um out of Chicago. And I messaged her and I told her what happened in the story, and she said, send me what you have. And so I did. And she's had them for a while because it takes a long time to do this type of work. And so anyway, she messaged me this week saying that she had completed it and that she was going to do it with no charge. It was that it was her honor to do it. That's awesome. She's a very yeah, very sweet, thoughtful thing. But she didn't have a casket. There was no no no chance of any of that. No casket, no saying goodbye to her, nothing. Right. Are you getting that from her now? I imagine it will probably be like in the next week or two.

SPEAKER_01

She's how does that feel to have done that and now you get to see it?

SPEAKER_00

Like everything else, very bittersweet, you know. Um I'm excited to have it. And it's gonna be small, you know. I'll wear it underneath. It's like a pendant, and uh it'll just be for me, but I am looking forward to having it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I bet. That's truly special, like something that was hers that can be with you every single day. Right. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

Very this lady is very talented in what she does, and she's done a lot of work because it was hairbrushes. It wasn't like I could just cut a piece of hair, you know. So it's been a lot of work that she's done to create whatever she's created. You don't even know what to expect. No, and I sent her like two heart earrings that were Elena's, thinking I was thinking maybe she could put. It's like on the inside, but she was like, No, I want to put them on the outside. I said, I'll trust your judgment. You're the jeweler with this specialty expertise, and it's kind of exciting to get something like that back. Yeah, I am. Like I said, it's very bittersweet. I'm I'm excited to see it and to have it, but what it is, it's emotionally a lot.

SPEAKER_01

Of course, it's probably gonna bring all kinds of memories back, too. Correct. Did you have a lot of close friends around you in the early days? Did they stick around long enough for you to feel like you got the love and support that you would need during that time?

SPEAKER_00

As far as my friends, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, they they have been great, but honestly, it's really me and my husband, unless you've walked this walk, I couldn't imagine doing this without him. And even well, and even more so, even with her, so her little brother, they are 15 months apart to the day. So, you know, they were extraordinarily close, yeah, especially growing up. They pretty much did everything together. I mean, of course, as they got much older, they definitely separated, but they were just one grade apart from each other. So Luke's been a tremendous, her little brother has been a tremendous support, and Alex has been a different kind of support because we're seeing him, he's 25 years old now, and his long-term girlfriend is actually a graphic designer, so she's the one that created our logo. So we've had all these different factors come in, but really the my best support um is my faith. There's that and my husband, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

How did you manage to be there for each other as a family through this?

SPEAKER_00

That's a that's a great question. It's really tough to answer. We didn't know any other way other than to just be there for each other, you know, constant communication, constant checking. We still do it. We were doing this before, you know. Maybe now I will say it's probably more intentional now. Before it was just like we're doing it, right? But we don't want to take anything for granted at all. Not a second. So I guess there's one thing that maybe we've learned. I mean, I know it's very cliche, don't take anything for granted. I will definitely say we probably lived in that bubble. I mean, none of us are immune to knowing that tragedies happened. You don't think it's gonna be at your front door, you know? So we're more intentional with that, and we have always been a very strong family unit. And and in fact, Helena had she had created like a little art collage, if you will, on her bedroom wall. And she had a fortune. We would go to hibachi a couple times a year, and so she would get fortune cookies, and the one fortune that she saved and stuck to her wall was something like your family means everything to you.

SPEAKER_01

That's the one she kept a good reminder for everyone, right? I think it's really special that you all stayed so connected and that you didn't know any other way because it can easily break families apart because you either go into your own world or cave or withdraw from society because you just want to be alone with your thoughts. Did you ever have moments like that for yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Alone from the world outside of our house, yes, but not inside of our house, no.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

No, I mean, also too, we have Ollie, you know, and so that doesn't afford us, you know, to be completely cut off from the world. You know what I mean? It wouldn't be fair to him. We, my husband, and of course I supported him because I think it is the right thing to do. He's like, we need to get Ollie into therapy dog training so that he can help uh help kids. We immediately put him in therapy dog training, and so we're still working through that process. He's past two classes, we have another one to do, and it's just gonna take time because he is really, I mean, just like my daughter, he really is a one-of-a-kind dog. He doesn't bark, he is best friends with our cat. Um, they're actually about the same age. We, as I mentioned, we have the one cat that's 22. We're like, well, we don't want to be without a pet. So we adopted a cat, thinking that's all we were gonna have. And then, you know, what happened happened. But and that was why I was asking my daughter, I was like, is he gonna get along with Archer? She's like, I think so. They're best friends. I mean, we were teasing like, you know, what is Archer gonna do when Ollie goes back to college? He's gonna be so alone, and then you know what happened happened, and they are two peas in a pod, Ollie and Archer.

SPEAKER_01

Um, that's so cute.

SPEAKER_00

But, you know, as far as you know, not I mean, yes, you you know, you're right. Uh it would be very easy to go down a dark path, but there has been so much darkness that surrounded what happened to my daughter that I refuse to allow myself to be swallowed up in that. I I refuse it. I just absolutely refuse it. I will not good for you.

SPEAKER_02

Plenty of days where I have cried.

SPEAKER_00

Like, how is it possible you know to cry? So many tears, like is there not like an end, but there's not I'm extremely angry because driving impaired is it's a choice and it is a crime. And so yeah, there's tremendous anger there, absolutely, because there's no reason for it, you know what I mean? You don't drive when you're impaired. It's it's pretty simple as that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Do you think you'll ever have forgiveness in your heart, especially since you know you've got so much faith in your life?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. It's a great question. I I think right now I'm just more focused on our foundation, our daughter's foundation, and I I think that is something I'm not ready to deal with.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You've got a bigger purpose right now. Correct. It's it's easier not to think about.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, correct. There was a moment when it could have been fixable, which is not driving, but that choice that choice was not given to me. It was a choice that was made that that I can't intervene on.

SPEAKER_01

So how do you find moments of joy for yourself now? And how does your family find that?

SPEAKER_00

Well, definitely Ollie. I mean, you know, he absolutely is uh such an integral part to our healing because as difficult as it is, and it's beyond difficult, he is a living, breathing, beautiful piece of our daughter's heart. All of his silly little tricks is what she taught him. Stay, roll over, get in the car, let's go for a pop cup. That was her favorite thing to do is take him. She took him everywhere except for that weekend. He went everywhere with her. She called him her child. He's my child.

SPEAKER_01

That's cute. You said he was gonna go back to school. Would he have gone back to the original owner, or would he have gone back with her as her dog?

SPEAKER_00

She was like, Do you think I'm gonna be able to keep him full-time because I've had him longer than than you know, her friend had had him? I said, Well, you you guys will probably work something out. I mean, I didn't really know. I'm like, I you know, I didn't want to speak for her friend, but I had a beautiful conversation with him, and I and obviously we have Ollie, and he's absolutely heartbroken. He said, Mrs. Corey, I knew Elena was gonna take good care of Ollie because of her work with the corgis. And he wasn't from here, but she had told him everything about the corgies, and he's like, it's the right thing to do. He goes, honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. I was a freshman, I don't know why I decided to get a dog, but I did.

SPEAKER_01

He got Ollie while he was in college, yes. Oh my gosh, and had him at the university. Yes, there's a reason for everything, and thank God for Ollie.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. I know I'm like, you have no idea how many hearts you're healing, Ollie. We partner with MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They have an association um with a company that is an app called Indoor for Athletes, and it's in is a Nancy D-U-R, it's a play on words. So indoor, so it's a mental health app for student athletes, and so high schools, well, I think high schools, but for sure colleges have to provide mental health support for NCAA athletes. I think I have it right, and so they have this company, and so they have invited us to a few things. And one of the things that we did that was, again, very bittersweet, but very beautiful, is we were invited to the campus of Boston College because Boston College has incorporated this app for their students. Bringing Ollie there and having him walk around the student population was beautifully emotional and overwhelming and everything and sad, but he absolutely, it was the right thing to do. I mean, he absolutely just he brought so much joy to the student athletes because, as you probably know, having a son in college, they're not with their families anymore, right? Right. And so here Ollie is just walking through the crowds, and I mean it was just a beautiful, beautiful thing. And of course, this is after we had started him on his therapy dog training, but it just reiterated how important it is to do that.

SPEAKER_01

That's really cool. There was something I read, and it's part of the foundation target is high school kids and college kids, and talking about the risks of driving impaired. Can you talk about where you take that message?

SPEAKER_00

It's hard, right? You know, it's very emotional. Yeah. But seeing the students' reactions at the end is why we do what we do. Because the hope is that when these kids are in, you know, when they're older, in perhaps not a safe situation, that you know, they'll be able to see the warning signs and recognize that and look out for each other and get home safe. I mean, that's the goal for everyone to get home safe.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm. Everybody, the driver and their passengers.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, everyone needs to come home safe. You know, and that's that's the goal of our messaging, right? Is to spread Elena's love forward by sharing that message. Uh and hopefully, you know, that's the goal is that it resonates and that it sticks with these kids. There's prompts, all kinds of things in life. And you know, even at the college level, I'm like, one day you guys are gonna get married, you know what I mean, or have some milestone. You're gonna turn 25, whatever that milestone is that might involve alcohol or something else, you know, and you cannot drive.

SPEAKER_01

That's why they're Uber and Lyft and taxis. What would you say to the community that's listening that are tempted to drive while impaired? Because people do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. I mean, I actually just recently got blocked on a road that I usually travel, and I'm like, why is the road shut down? It was on the Cape, and that person was arrested for OUI, and interestingly, he's OUI because of drugs. What's OUI?

SPEAKER_01

That must be an East Coast thing. I'm not familiar with it.

SPEAKER_00

No, we say DUI, but Massachusetts is actually OUI, is operating under the influence that so that's why I say it, right? But it DUI, OUI, it's interchangeable, it means the same thing. You're driving impaired, but driving impaired is not alcohol, it's alcohol, prescribed medication, or drugs that are not prescribed. It's THC marijuana.

SPEAKER_01

When you tell your story to these high school or college students, do you talk about that in depth with them as well? Maybe it's just my generation. When we think of OUI, DUI, we immediately think booze, right? Because that's the thing we all grew up with. There's a lot more available to these kids today than there was when all of us were kids. Do you talk about impairment is not just about being under the influence of alcohol?

SPEAKER_00

I have not specifically yet, but our mad representative does. He gives an introduction and she goes over that. Obviously, there are other things to make you impaired. Students are beyond compassionate. And one thing that my husband has coined, and I do lean into it, is we don't do this for sympathy. We appreciate the sympathy, absolutely, but that's not why we're doing this. We're doing this so that no other parent is standing in our shoes. What was interesting is I created just a four-part uh Google survey because I wanted to know from the kids what resonates with them because we we want to make sure that we are speaking to them on their level so that it sticks. And one of the responses that we got, first of all, I was blown away when I put the QR code on like no pressure, it's just four questions, it's just to help guide us. If you don't want to do it, it's fine. But we had an abundance of answers, and one of the statements that will stick with me forever is I never want to see my parents. This hurt.

SPEAKER_01

Oh wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

These kids were so so thoughtful. I have a picture of Elena when she was younger with Santa, and I said she'll never get another Santa gift. And someone wrote in there seeing her mom mentioned that there's no more Santa's, there's no more holidays, broke my heart.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm. For other people that are in your shoes and have lost a child, what would you share with them on how to get through this?

SPEAKER_00

I will say for me, um, I have found my community on social media, which ironically I was part of Facebook, part of Instagram, but very minimal. Now, because of my daughter, because her of her passion for social media, been a very difficult but beautiful way to keep her legacy going and has given me unbeknownst, I guess even to myself, giving me the strength to put myself out there. It's not a very comfortable thing to do, especially speaking in front of kids. I did work in the school systems, I was a paraeducator for about seven years. So I I am familiar with being in schools, but speaking in front of them, especially about something so difficult, is a different ball game. But anyway, all that to say, and for another parent, you know, going through this, just like you mentioned with the person at Barcelona, they're they're just now starting this process of where their life is no longer what it once was and will never be again, is to lean in to any type of support that feels okay for you. Um I obviously didn't let me just back up. I did not start social media for my daughter until a year after she lost her life. So I guess in a way I was kind of private with it. Now we did have our Instagram, which my husband heads up that mostly, but you know, just to kind of get our foundation message out there. The big takeaway is I have gotten a lot of support from a lot of grief moms. And we're all over the country. We've all experienced all kinds of loss. That's been very, very helpful for me. And, you know, for some people, it is obviously leaning in on faith, which we've done that as well. The one thing I guess, and it's unique to our situation, and not every person may have this opportunity or this capability, but we did a lot of grief travel. Um, and we were we were fortunate in a horrific situation to to do that um because we could not go back to work. There's just no way. We we just couldn't do it. So we took several months off. And part of it is we also had to determine where Elena's final resting place was gonna be. So, you know, that is one thing I share with the students when I speak to them is, you know, instead of picking out dorm decor or apartment decor, she was moving into a nude apartment. We were picking out where her final resting spot was gonna be. Because, you know, we're not originally from Massachusetts, so we had to, and we have Ollie, so we had to put Ollie in the car and travel the eastern seaboard back to where we're from and meet with funeral directors and you know, plots and figure all that out. So, you know, back to your question, you just any parent that begins this you know journey that nobody wants. I mean, they all say this is a club nobody wants to be a part of, that's completely true. You have to lean into what feels right to you. If if it means being quiet and having solitude, that's okay. If it means turning to social media, that's okay too. If it means going to church or whatever your religion or faith may be, that's okay. You know, you have to do what works for you. And I think you won't obviously know that unless you're in that situation. You know, everyone does things a little differently, and it's all whatever that is, you know, it's all okay, as long as it's, you know, you have to be mindful not to go down a black hole. Um, we are very mindful. We've had therapy. My our sons have had therapy, we're very involved in that. That's been a huge help is to not shy away from grief therapy. One of one of the things we've had a lot of transformative things happen, but I will say going overseas, it happened to be our 30th wedding anniversary, and we just knew that we needed to go somewhere far away, and it was time. And so we decided to do that. We went to Ireland, we took her little brother, her older brother, and her and her older brother's long-term girlfriend, and we have a foundation football. This football's kind of like taken a life of its own, and it's been very beautiful, and so Robert's carrying it, and like there's these kids that were out on lunch break in Galway, and they're like, What's the football? And so it gave us a chance to talk about Elena, and they take a photo with it, and the whole school is like, We're so grateful for you. And then we went to another town called Dingle, same thing. We have the football out.

SPEAKER_01

I saw pictures of the football, and there was something that he wrote on the football had just safe ride.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Yeah, that's something he just my husband came up with it and he was like, I'm putting it on a football because Elena loved SEC game days. Um, so it just sort of kind of came together, and it's been really beautiful. So, like on Mad, a college, like a senior college sports reporter, her name is Heather Denish. She's on the Mad advisory board, I believe. And so we sent her a football and she did a beautiful PSA for us. So it's just things like that that really lift us up and give us that knowledge that we're hopefully making a difference, you know what I mean? And that us putting our message out there in Elena's story that it ultimately at the end of the day, that it saves lives. That's really what it matters, what you know, what it comes down to. Someone else I've come in contact with, um, they have a social media channel where they do talk about car safety. And ironically, she said one of the biggest challenges right now is people not wearing their seatbelts. And people are being ejected because they're not wearing their seatbelt and they are losing their lives over it. She said it's a real problem.

SPEAKER_01

When I grew up, nobody wore their seatbelts. Our parents drove around and we were in the back of the station wagon having fun. And then the law came and it it's mandatory. You can actually get a ticket if you're not wearing your seatbelt. I've been in an Uber and we got broadsided. My girlfriend and I were in the back seat. Everybody was fine. I've been in millions of Ubers and Lifts and never put a seatbelt on until that day happened. But the point is we put seat belts on for ourselves. Why do we assume if we get in a car that somebody else is driving that we don't even know, a taxi, a lift, an Uber, you don't need a seatbelt. People think I'm safe. I'm not driving. I know some states require it. You get in and it tells you to put your seatbelt on. They won't drive until you do. But I always tell everyone, get your seatbelt on.

SPEAKER_00

What's interesting is, and I have learned from her because people will ask her, how do you know if someone didn't wear their seatbelt? It's when the car is in the scrapyard and they're locked and unlocked, right? So if it's locked, that means the seatbelt had been on. If it's loose, seatbelt was never on. That's how she knows. Because she's a tow truck driver. So she goes to the scenes. I'm grateful for her that she definitely educated me. And that's the whole thing when I am speaking or we're speaking to kids, it's all of the things. Obviously, our priority is to teach about looking out for each other and loving the people and caring for the people in your car and on the road because it's not only what's going on inside of your car, it could be like my new friend who was hit head on because he was in the complete wrong way. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were just sitting there, had just come back from an event, but they were just going about their daily life, and this driver was on the complete wrong side of the road at a high rate of speed. That's scary. Correct. We say this is our daughter connecting uh people even in this immense tragedy. We have become good friends with a family in Vermont where this happened. And the mother is very involved with Mad and she's been given all kinds of awards because she's really done phenomenal to move the needle to make change, positive change in Vermont. And she is a 911 dispatcher, and her husband is a sheriff, and they too were hit head on by a wrong way driver, and they too lost their six-year-old only daughter.

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, the stories that you're connected to now through love and support, it's great that they all didn't have each other.

SPEAKER_00

Her name is Alicia, she's been phenomenal. They're doing what's called honor patrols. Um, they had the first one last year. Elena was part of it because the week of Christmas through New Year's is the highest DUI activity because it's the holidays and people are drinking. And so what they did in Vermont is they sent flyers to every single police entity, law enforcement entity with a child's name and story when it was that child's night. So I think Elena was New Year's. It, you know, her information would go to those police precincts. And so when they were making an arrest, it was an honor of Elena.

SPEAKER_04

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00

So that's one beautiful thing. It's called a DUI honor patrol. And honestly, it should be nationwide because this is not something abstract. These are real people and real families that are being forever altered and devastated because of one decision to drive impaired.

SPEAKER_01

A decision that changes somebody's life forever.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. A couple things I'll tell you. There is some, obviously, living in this space is not fast enough, obviously, but there is some changes that are happening. So in Utah, if you are repeat of, I think it's Utah, I'm pretty sure. They're the first ones to do this. Two things. I'm pretty sure their acceptable blood alcohol limit is now 0.5. Everywhere else it's 0.8. The other thing, and this is actually law, is your driver's license will be marked that you are not able to buy alcohol if you're a repeat offender. They're the first state. Some states are going to where your first offense is a felony. There are some pockets of some strong responses to it. We're not a country, I don't think we're there yet. But there are some small positive changes. Just think about how, like, just we'll use Colorado as an example. 16,000 arrests in say one year, whether it's 23 or 24, whatever. Well, how many weren't arrested?

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

You know, and then think of that times our entire country.

SPEAKER_01

Right. It's a big number.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. Where we live on the South Shore, there was a digital sign. I think it was in 25, but 24 data. I believe it was 28 kids had lost their lives to DUIs in Massachusetts. It's on the surface doesn't seem like a lot a lot, but one is too many. That's right. If you're that family like like us, so us technically it's Vermont, not Massachusetts, because that's where the event happened. Um I think it's a bigger problem. That's why I say like now when I'm driving, I try to stay as far away as people. Before I, you know, like I said, I knew obviously people were capable of it. I just didn't realize exactly how prevalent it is. And especially like you said, like on the Cape, all the stuff happening there. I'm I'm not saying I'm scared to drive, but I am definitely more apprehensive and I will be for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01

Of course.

SPEAKER_00

Her little brother, he didn't drive for eight months. He did not go back to college.

SPEAKER_01

Is he still at home?

SPEAKER_00

He is, yeah. Yeah, he works. And he eventually got the courage up to drive again. But it was difficult. He was scared. And I think we all will be forever scared, you know. He didn't want to put himself in a situation. He just, it was just everything, you know, just emotional, worried for himself, worried for us. You want to know something I've learned? You know, you have a kid in college, and and we were this way with our kids in college. Oh, why are you getting Uber Eats? What are you doing that for? Get all the Uber Eats you want. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care if it's$50 for McDonald's. You're not on the road. Mm-hmm. It's one thing I've learned. Even still, you know, they're respectful for it. You know what I mean? We were eating like normal parents. Why can't you go to the cafeteria? You know, why can't you cook at home? You know what I mean? Why are you getting Uber Eats again? Just normal stuff. Now I'm like, you want Uber Eats? Fine. You don't be doing it three times a day, but I'm joking. But you know, whenever you want it, it's fine because you're not driving.

SPEAKER_01

You're you're that's actually an interesting point as a parent of this great loss. Do you have a different parenting style?

SPEAKER_00

We always felt like we were intentional with our kids, but we definitely were living we what we called a soft life before, you know, thinking that you know tomorrow is promised, even though we know it's not. We just never thought it would come to our front door. So now that that has happened, we are absolutely more intentional and a silly thing like an Uber. You want to get Uber Eats or or whatever, do it. You know what I mean? Like it keeps you off the road, you know. And you know, one thing we learned, and I'm seeing this, is a lot of young people are more often than not, like last weekend. Actually, I'll tell you like very quickly, three stories in the last week. So Spotsylvania, I think that's Pennsylvania, three kids, one driver, three kids all passed away. Don't know if there's impairment, but do know there was reckless driving. All three gone. All 18, 19. Last week, two stories that I know of, and I'm sure there's much more, but these are the two that have come across my social media world. One girl is in Missouri, a car load of four kids. That one's probably reckless driving, could be OUI or DUI, hasn't come been confirmed yet, but she died. She's with her friends, and then the other car, which I also is in Pennsylvania, not Spotsylvania, but somewhere different, four kids all perished. And most likely, again, they have to do the toxicology. That's why when the driver also kills himself, or when they kill themselves, they don't know until they do the toxicology if there's alcohol or drugs involved. But what they do know is that there's speed. And so those are three stories just like in the last week. So one thing that we're trying to get the message across is you cannot trust your friend to get you home safe. You should be able to trust your friend to get you home safe, but you cannot.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because all of these situations, every single one of them thought they were gonna get home safe because they were with their friend.

SPEAKER_01

Kids and I had this thing. You cannot get in the car with any of your friends if they've been drinking. I don't care what time it is, I don't care if you're blasted out of your mind. There's gonna be consequences when you get this is high school. There's gonna be consequences when you get home, but you can't do it. It was midnight, 1 a.m. My son got a call because one of his friends was absolutely hammered and wanted to drive home. And everyone else had had some drinks and they called him because my son didn't go to the party and said, Hey, can you come pick him up and take him home? Because none of us can drive. And he did it. Cause he was like, Absolutely, no one's gonna get in their cars.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. Those are the things that you know should happen, but unfortunately, I think situations don't present themselves as a dangerous situation. I think things are normalized and they don't seem dangerous, yeah. And it could be too that the parents, just in general, parents are drinking, having a drink and driving. And so if you've grown up with that and hey, dad got me home, mom got me home, grandma got me home, what's the big deal? You know, I think every situation is not entirely exactly the same. Um and I think the biggest thing for especially young young adults is the situations don't present themselves as dangerous, they don't see it as dangerous because that's my friend. My friend wouldn't hurt me. My friend isn't going to by any stretch of the imagination kill me when these beautiful children get in the car with their friends. They're not thinking this is a death ride.

SPEAKER_01

No.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, we're going home or we're going to the next or whatever. Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely what they're thinking. And so that's, you know, something that we, you know, are working on crafting and honing that message better. It it will, I'm sure, evolve over time and become more clear because that that's the trend that we're seeing, right? Like, you know, most kids that are passengers and that lose their life, they're not with a stranger. They could be with a family member, they could be with a friend, especially at the young age, like 21 and under, you know, they're with their friends. So that's the message, you know, that we want to get across. And, you know, sometimes kids may not know how much their friend has been drinking. They may not know that their friend maybe took drugs. You can't always know exactly 100% what everyone's doing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's a high probability that they just don't know. Things can happen out of their vision. We had one of the mad directors told me that he was not even drinking. This is how he got involved in mad. He wasn't drinking at all. This is when he was a teenager many, many years ago, and he had a friend come to a party and pick him up, but he actually was sober. Well, he didn't know that his friend had been drinking, and his friend came to pick them up to take them home and almost killed them all. He said, I had no idea that he'd even been drinking. None at all.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Almost literally the car, he's the way he described the car was going to go over a cliff. He's like, Yeah, we were this close to going over the cliff. From that point on is what prompted him to become a part of Mad, you know. And yeah, it was a horrifying experience, but I'll never forget him telling me that. He goes, I had absolutely no idea, none at all. He goes, because I was young, I just didn't know. You know, some some kids can hide what they've done.

SPEAKER_01

Some kids are just in their own world, they're very self-centered in some ways, in their own thoughts and about what's happening in their life that they're not as tuned in and as observant until later in life, right?

SPEAKER_00

That's a good point to make, you know. So that is, like I said, one of our messages to try to hone. Again, it's a very bittersweet thing, but Elena being so young, she's right now very relatable to the kids. As time goes on, she will get further and further away from where the kids are today with social media and things like that. But right now, she's right there with them.

SPEAKER_01

How often are you speaking in front of the schools?

SPEAKER_00

We've just done it once. It, you know, it has taken a long time for us to get to this point. I told the kids please be patient with us that we were going to be emotional. And I said it was just beautiful with the survey, the thoughtful answers that the kids gave back. I was literally blown away. You know, they took a lot of care in their responses, you know. So we hope that that will resonate with them for the rest of their lives. The ones that we are impacting, and even the ones down in Louisiana, where the other foundation is doing beautiful work down there, they're covering that area from Texas to Louisiana. They're making a huge impact as well. And so hopefully we will have a new generation of kids that do understand that there are unfixable consequences from impaired driving and reckless driving, all the above. It's not abstract. We these are, as I've said before, these are real people with real families that that love them and they're not going to come home again.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's a really strong message.

SPEAKER_00

We would love to be able to speak to colleges and high schools, you know, like four or five times a year to get in front of them. And one thing that we do, again, with the football is we'll go. This is kind of a silly thing, but we do love it. And people have been so welcoming and open to it. We have this foundation football, and really what spawned it is when we were going to Elena's graduation, so she had earned enough credits to graduate from the University of Arkansas. So they had invited us there. We're in the airport, and I'm crying. And one thing that I do, and again, it's just one of these things, it was just very organic because it's just something that I wanted to do. Um, so we knew that that would be the last time we would be flying to Fayetteville, and so I wanted to give the flight attendants little gift bags in honor of Elena because she loved to travel so much. And so I did that. And so what happened is when we were at the gate and the flight was just a little delayed, I saw a man walk up and he was clearly a pilot. Well, come to find out he was a pilot in training. We're like, oh no, are we safe? He wasn't the pilot in training, he was an instructor watching the pilot and training. We're like, Oh, are we we good here? You know, and because I just say, Hey, excuse me, how many flight attendants? Because I just made like six or eight bags because I had no idea, right? I'm just guessing, you know, this is one of these glimmers. It was just beautiful. And as it turns out, he is a part-time flight instructor. His full-time job, he's a police officer. He was probably our first interaction telling Elena's story now that I think about it, outside of our bubble. And then he on his own talks to the young pilot and says, We have this family, this is what's happened. And the young pilot comes up and he introduces himself. He's like, Whatever you guys need, we're gonna do it for you. And Robert had the football out. He was like, What's the football? He was like, We're gonna take this to graduation because what my husband wanted to do, and what happened was to pass the football around the entire graduating class. So we we did do that, but what ended up happening is when that younger pilot saw the football, he said, Once we land, I want you to come to the cockpit and we're gonna take pictures with the football. So that is what launched it is these delta pilots. Oh my gosh, these delta pilots so freaking awesome! So we're sitting there, we're about to land, and then one of the flight attendants gave the most beautiful speech for us. The whole plane clapped.

SPEAKER_01

Oh that's amazing. The whole community came together for you. How special! That's a lot of heart and love and just caring and kindness, and those are the things that keep us going.

SPEAKER_00

It's these these random things, you know, that we come across unexpected, like you can't plan it. And and even that pilot, he'll message Robert to this day. He's like, I carry Elena's prayer card with me everywhere. I'll take it with me everywhere. Oh, he'll send a message to Robert every once in a while to this day, and it's just a very nice, beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I love that they took the football and took a picture in the cockpit. They did that out of pure kindness, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Since they launched it, we will go to say, like, a McDonald's or a Starbucks or like we were in Ireland carrying it around, and eventually someone will be like, Can I take a picture of the football? And so it's just one more door of communication to tell Elena's story and to spread awareness. The football has really become a very core piece to our healing. Ollie and with her foundation.

SPEAKER_01

Those are great momentums, too. You've got Ollie the dog, the football. Pretty soon you're gonna have your pendant. It's nice to have that.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

To warm your heart.

SPEAKER_00

That's all very meaningful moments that we encounter. Sometimes we'll like, hey, we'll give the football a break. But we were down in Plymouth, and people know us because of social media. And some girl, she knew Elena from school. She was like, Hey, are you Elena's dad? And turns out she's a harbor master, and she goes, Can I take a picture of the football? And Robert's like, Okay, yeah, okay, sure. So he went back to the car to get the football. So beautiful, sweet little moments like that, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it is. That is so cool. I love that. Is there anything else that you want to share? Maybe with parents that are listening that have high school kids.

SPEAKER_00

What I'll say is the same thing that I said to our one presentation is to really impress upon the kids is to do everything in love. And that means driving the car. Um, a car is not some abstract thing, it is an important part of our daily life, especially in America, but it's not abstract, it is something that you should value. If it's not handled with the proper care, it could hurt you or somebody else. And it's not just about the people in your car or even just yourself, it's the other people around you. So it's about love and care. You, you know, to impress upon any kid to love and care for the community around you. That includes driving on the road. I mean, we see it all the time: people cutting each other off, not using their blinker, road rage, all of these things. At the end of the day, that's not how we should be driving. It's not going to get you there any faster. And it's not going to solve any problems. Treat everyone with the same love and care you have for your own family, for those on the road, even if they did cut you off, even if they did not use their blinker. Those things just don't matter at the end of the day. It's all about getting home safely, right? And allowing others to get home safely. That's the key, is to treat everybody with love in and outside of your vehicle.

SPEAKER_01

As we close today's episode, I hope Elena's story stays with you because of the profound reminder of how fragile life truly is and how quickly everything can change. If this conversation moved you, let it serve as a reminder to cherish the people you love, to make thoughtful choices, and to never take a single moment for granted. Until next time.

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Teresa Baglietto

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