SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Saturday marks a very painful anniversary for Senate President Michael Waddoups and his wife, Anna Kay.
It was eight years ago to the day that her car was hit by a drunk driver.
It was February 14th, 2001.
North Temple and 10th West in Salt Lake.
Mrs. Kay Waddoups is stopped at a red light.
Suddenly, the drunk driver slams into her brand new car.
It was nine in the morning.
Anna Kay Waddoups recalled, "I used to like Valentine's Day."
ABC 4 asked, “And now?"
Anna Kay Waddoups responded, “I could skim right over it and really not care."
Her husband adds, "Since my wife's accident, all of a sudden I ask myself regularly what more can we do to keep them off the road?"
Because he still holds his wife's Valentine crash close and because of his commitment to prevent DUIs, Waddoups has recently become a bit of a target.
And reports about ID scanners and DUI central databases haven't helped.
Sen. Waddoups says, "I had a message left one night from someone saying they wished my wife would have been hurt in different way so I could have been passionate about that area."
Senator Waddoups knows alcohol is a legal product even though he admits to ABC 4 that sometimes he's tempted to think “maybe it shouldn’t be.”
But he also says Utah will not be going back to the days of Prohibition.
As for his wife, despite her constant physical and emotional pain, her goal is to stop future DUIs - not to dwell on what happened to her.
She says, "You can either let it canker your soul and you can either be angry the whole time or else you can move on and do something productive and try to help someone else."
The senate president puts it this way:
"She's one of the lucky ones that still is here and is out there overcoming her own pain trying to help other people."
