Derrick Jenkins will be paying medical bills for the rest of his life.
“Just within the first night my medical bill was over $1.5 million,” he said. “Emotionally it cost us all.”
The financial and emotional scars aren’t visible from Jenkins’ November 2013 motorcycle crash. The physical scars, however, are hard to hide.
“I remember sight,” he said while sitting outside his St. Petersburg College classroom. “I see in a different way. I don’t think of it as I’m blind and I can’t see.”
Jenkins no longer has eyes. He lost them when he decided to drive his motorcycle home from a car show while drunk. He collided with a stationary construction vehicle on U.S. 19. He was transported to the hospital in a helicopter where doctors didn’t expect him to survive.
“Immediately I almost passed out and someone had to sit me down,” said his mother, Jennifer Jenkins. “It was overwhelming.”
Now, having survived what medical professionals expected would kill him, Derrick spends his time advocating for safe driving. He knows that his decision to drive drunk is one that changed his life and will change others' lives if they make the same mistake.
It’s the message he shared with his classmates in a public speaking class Tuesday morning.
“It’s not a matter of if this will happen if someone wants to drink and drive, it’s just a matter of when,” he said. “I didn’t wake up one day and decide to go blind. Medically speaking, the doctor didn’t think I was going to survive. So, the fact that I’m here talking to you, able to go to school, I’m lucky that all I lost were my eyes.”
Derrick, who plans to study engineering, speaks to high school students and at other community functions multiple times per week to act as a living example against the dangers of drunken driving. His next presentation will be through MADD on Thursday, June 21 at 6:00 p.m. at St. Petersburg College – Clearwater campus. He will speak at the courthouse in Clearwater (14250 49th St N, Clearwater, FL 33762) on June 30th , 2016 at 3:45pm.
