Katie Evans, a 37-year-old mother of six, was killed by a drunk driver on her way back from the hospital five years ago, leaving behind a loving family.

On Oct. 6, 2017, Evans was returning home after visiting her twin daughters, who had been born three months prematurely at the UCLA Intensive Care Unit, when a 21-year-old female driver, who had been driving while impaired, crashed into her. Evans was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I want to share my story because I want people to understand just how devastating it is when something like this happens,” her husband, Jacob Evans said in a previous interview. “It completely ruined my life to that point, and there have been some good things that have happened since, but I don’t want anyone to have to go through the sort of suffering and pain that my family has gone through.”

When his wife still hadn’t arrived home by midnight, Jacob tried calling her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.

He had no idea that around that same time, first responders were at the scene of a three-car crash less than a mile away from his home, where open containers of alcohol had been discovered inside the vehicle of the “primary person,” who was later identified as then 21-year-old Alexia Cina.

“I decided to retrace my steps, and it was only a mile from the house where they had the whole road taped off and they wouldn’t let me through,” Jacob recalled. “They wouldn’t tell it to me straight, but I was able to put all the pieces together and figure out that, unfortunately, that was her right there, a mile from her house, killed by a drunk driver.”

Toxicology reports indicated that Cina had a blood alcohol content of almost three times the legal limit, and she had jumped the curb with her car and struck oncoming traffic, killing Katie in the resulting crash, according to law enforcement officials.

“It took them a long time because they couldn’t positively identify the body,” he said. “It had been so mangled in the accident. They never even let me see the body.”

In July 2018, the woman who struck and killed Katie was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after pleading no contest to the charges against her.

“Regardless of whether it’s drunk driving or something else, I just want the kids to commit to, when they do run into adversity in their lives, I want you guys to commit that you’re going to handle it the right way, that you’re going to become a better person for it and that you are going to try to make the world a better place,” Jacob said.

Although neither Katie nor Jacob had ever drunk alcohol in their lives, and may have thought that alcohol wasn’t “their business” as a result, their family was changed forever because of drunk driving.

“Alcohol is everybody’s business. Don’t let your friends drink and drive. Don’t let somebody leave a party drunk, because you never know. It might be someone you know that’s life is impacted forever,” Jacob said. “Have a plan. Don’t drink and drive.”

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