ABQJOURNAL NORTH: 'Showing her fight'

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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

'Showing her fight'

By Vic Vela
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
       Dan Koffman says he's woken up many times in the middle of the night since Sunday, wondering what John Simmons is thinking about.
       “I see Rose's face in my mind, you know?” Koffman said Tuesday of his daughter Avree's best friend Rose Simmons, John's daughter.
       Rose was one of four Santa Fe teenagers killed after a Subaru driven by Avree Koffman crashed into a Jeep on Old Las Vegas Highway east of Santa Fe early Sunday morning.
       “I see John waking up and there's an empty room. How's he gonna get through the next minute, the next second?” Koffman asked.
       “How's he gonna make it through the rest of his life?”
       Avree Koffman was the lone survivor in the Subaru. She is recovering at University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque from what initially were considered life-threatening injuries.
       Santa Fe County Sheriff's investigators say Scott Owens, 27, the driver of the Jeep, is suspected of having been drunk and was traveling in the wrong lane just before the crash. Owens faces four counts of vehicular homicide.
       Dan Koffman — an advertising account executive with the Santa Fe Reporter — said that Avree is “showing her fight” in her recovery, which he hopes will be a testament to the teens who died.
       “You need to do this for Rose, for all the children who suffered,” he said of Avree. “You need to do it for that driver. Who knows why the universe has spared you, but you need to stay on that mission.
       “She can become the healing power of the community,” he said. “Right now the community is hurting.”
       Kate Klein, Alyssa Trouw and Julian Martinez, all 16, also died in the accident.
       Deputies say Avree Koffman swerved to avoid Owens' wrong-way Jeep, which then broadsided her car. Owens, now in jail under a $3 million bond, refused to take a breath test to determine blood alcohol concentration. Results of a blood test are pending. Responding officers said he smelled of alcohol.
       Avree was driving on a provisional license for beginner drivers, which prohibits driving between midnight and 5 a.m. or having more than one person under age 21 who is not a family member in the car.
       Koffman took a long pause when asked about that and said, “Avree is not the only person in the world who has done things that teenagers do.
       “I taught Avree how to drive. She's a fantastic driver. She's a smart girl. She tried to save them. She did her best to save her friends.”
       Investigators say there is no evidence so far pointing to drinking by the teens in the Subaru, although blood-test and toxicology reports are pending. They and others in a caravan were heading to a party in the Eldorado subdivision southeast of Santa Fe.
       Asked what emotions Owens' name triggers now, Koffman at first said he was focused more on his daughter's recovery. But after a while, he talked about the drunken driving suspect.
       “It's not a matter of driving drunk, it's disrespecting the world you live in,” he said.
       “You don't cross the yellow line! You don't do that in this society! You don't drive that car. I don't understand the disrespect and poor judgment.
       “How do we prevent this in the future?” he said. “It just happens every damn time. It's not just this guy, it's the bigger picture.”
       Koffman said Avree and Rose worked with the Santa Fe-based environmental group EarthCare International and that the other teens who died that night were also “great kids.”
       “These teens were teens who didn't do drugs or drink or played Game Boy or sat around all day doing nothing,” he said. “They were trying to do something in the world.”
       Koffman said his thoughts are with the families of Avree's friends who didn't survive and said he's trying to figure out the best way to answer Avree's questions about what happened.
       “I waver between feeling their pain and imagining what it would be like if Avree didn't make it,” he said. “Right now we're assembling a support system so if she asks the question, 'Where is my best friend?' we will have people to be able to handle that shock and awe.”
       Koffman said his daughter is “improving nicely.” He said Avree has multiple fractures in her skull and pelvis and possibly in her tailbone. She has lacerations on her face and neck and stitches inside and outside her mouth.
       “Right now there's a good possibility of a full recovery,” he said.
       Her father said she awoke Tuesday afternoon while a nurse was brushing her teeth. She opened her eyes, looked up and thought the nurse was her mother and said, “Mom,” Koffman said. He said he also kissed her forehead, after which she “stared at me for a few seconds and said, 'Hey, Dad.'”
       She's also been overheard saying “oww” and “pain.”
       Avree also has said a few other words “with more syllables” that are not suitable for print, Koffman said. And that's just fine with him.
       “I used to hate those words,” he said. “But after I heard her say them when she hasn't been able to say much, I now love those words.”

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