Toronto cop makes personal plea to stop people from drinking and driving

TORONTO, Ont. – With the Christmas party season around the corner, police kicked off the 2011 holiday RIDE program, Thursday.

At the launch at Humber College, a Toronto police officer shared a very personal plea for motorists to not drink and drive.

Police Const. Alison Gaudino’s life completely changed in Oct. 2008. The Toronto school resource officer and her husband, Randy Tallon, also a Toronto police officer, were driving through Georgia in the U.S. when a 24-year-old drunk driver hit their truck.

Her husband was killed. The force of the crash was so powerful he was thrown from the wreckage even though he was wearing his seat belt.

The accident took place on Interstate 75 in Dalton, Ga. The couple’s Chevrolet Silverado was rear-ended by another vehicle. It lost control and flipped several times before coming to a stop.

Tallon worked with Traffic Services and also was a training officer at Humber College. He was 50 at the time of his death.

“Time doesn’t heal. How do you get out of bed in the morning, how do you live in the same home? And even work is impacted because we share that. It’s indescribable, I can’t put it into words,” Const. Gaudino said.

She told 680News her life will never be the same.

“It was taken away in less than 30 seconds. To see that your spouse, the person that you’ve chose to spend the rest of your life with, is on the road, and he’s been killed in such a tragic way,” Gaudino said.

Tallon was a passenger in the car, and Gaudino was the driver. She was airlifted to hospital with critical injuries.

“Time doesn’t heal when you survive a tragedy like this. You look in the mirror and you see the scars, the pain on injuries that haven’t healed fully. You’re never the same,” Gaudino said

Gaudino said she’s sharing her story because she wants people to know that drinking and driving is a choice, and she’s asking people to make the choice not to do it.

The 24-year-old driver was charged with driving while intoxicated and sentenced to life in prison. Penalty for drunk driving is much stiffer in the U.S. versus Canada.

The message from police is that the best gift a driver can give this holiday season is not to drink and drive, and not have anyone’s life devastated by irresponsibility. Police are also warning that it’s not responsible to just get up the next morning and drive home.

The OPP said 40 people have died in alcohol-related crashes on OPP-patrolled roads and highways so far this year — which is lower than the 75 at this point last year — but, still too many.

Right after the RIDE launch, police held a spot check on Humber College Boulevard.