Getting in a vehicle while intoxicated, seems to be an idea terrible to anyone. To make it more clear to the students at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, speaker and permanent felon, Jessica Leslie, told these students her story of the decision she made one night, that changed the rest of her life.

It was  at 5:52 in the morning, when Leslie suddenly awoken from impact. She and the passenger in her car were drunk. Leslie hit what she thought was an animal because of the “animal hair” in the grill of the car. It was not until moments later, when she saw an arm cuffing her front left tire. She realized what she actually hit was not an animal, but a man named Pat. After hitting Pat, Jessica Leslie’s car dragged his body for 33 feet before the car came to a stop.

Given that her blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit, at 1.5, Jessica was not prepared fot the consequences she had to face. It was not until two months later that she was charged with driving under the influence (DUI) manslaughter, which normally calls for 15-20 years in prison. Due tot the fact that Pat’s mother asked for her sentence to reduce, Leslie ended up serving 18 months in prison. Leslie felt she had no right to be alive, but she thought “maybe there is a reason I am still alive.”

Jessica Leslie is permanently classified as a youthful offender and a felon after the decision she made to drink and drive. She now has a hardship license, the ability to leave the state for strictly work purposes, and a machine in her car that enables the car to start if her breathe reveals any amount of alchol. Leslie now spends her days with a life she never thought she would live, but she travels to spread the word that “after drinking, there is no thinking”.

“I think it’s good that after all the bad stuff she did, she realized that she was wasting her time. She wanted to change herself,” Sophomore Paz Verga said. “Now she actually talks to people to persuade them to notput themselves through what she went through.”  It seems like Leslie opened some students eyes, while others may still think “that will never happen to me.”