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Turning pain into purpose
FOX 5 NY's Jodi Goldberg has more on how one Long Island family hopes their heartbreaking story will save lives.
LONG ISLAND - The McMorris family is turning pain into purpose in honor of Andrew, their beloved son and brother who was killed by a drunk driver back in 2018 while hiking with his Boy Scout troop.
Since his death, the McMorris’ have teamed up with law enforcement and Mothers Against Drunk Driving to keep Long Island roadways safe.
Just last month, aspiring tennis stars Drew Hassenbein and Ethan Falkowitz were killed by an alleged drunk and impaired driver in Nassau County.
2 teen tennis prodigies killed in Long Island wrong-way crash
Drew Hassenbein and Ethan Falkowitz, a pair of 14-year-old tennis prodigies were killed in a horrifying late-night crash allegedly caused by a wrong-way drunk driver.
On Thursday the McMorris family stood front and center in Suffolk as Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. announced a Summer Stop DWI campaign dubbed Operation HEAT. The goal to further enhance enforcement with more patrols and checkpoints than ever before.
"The National Safety Council estimated nationwide 462 people are killed on the road in July 4 crashes last year," said Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. "Excessive alcohol is a cause of 41-percent of these fatalities."
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Sentencing of drunk driver who killed L.I. Boy Scout delayed
A family on Long Island who lost their son at the hands of a drunk driver nearly two years ago is still waiting for justice due to an unusual hearing on juror misconduct.
According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, every 39 minutes someone is killed by a drunk driver nationwide and two out of three people will be impacted by drunk driving in their lifetime.
The Sheriff’s office will have more than a dozen deputy sheriffs stationed on heavily traveled roads as well as their mobile DWI processing center at checkpoints to expedite arrests.
As for the McMorris’, they’re asking people to think before they drink - so what happened to their family doesn’t happen to anyone else.