PORT TOWNSEND — Heather L. Holden always said she would learn from her mistakes.
But there was one mistake she’ll never learn from — getting into a car with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.
At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 31, Heather left her Sequim home with friends and less than three hours later, she was dead, killed in a drunken driving-related crash on Palo Alto Road east of Sequim.
“Heather can’t learn from her final mistake,” her teary-eyed mother, Barbara Holden, told a group of Port Townsend High School students and their parents Wednesday night.
“Somebody learn from the mistakes that Heather made, please,” she said.
Along with Heather, 19-year-old Aaron William Gambell and 22-year-old Paul Anthony Boynton were killed in the crash on Palo Alto Road, east of Sequim.
Mrs. Holden gave her speech with a portrait of Heather propped next to a newspaper article about the crash. It was an emotional end to an 90-minute program at the high school designed to make young drivers aware of the consequences of drinking alcohol.
The event was organized by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Traffic Safety Coordinator Linda Pfafman.
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