Not Looking Away From Tragedy; New Mexico Collision Haunts Rescuers, Offenders

SANTA FE - Dennis O'Brien warned his audience that the images might be too graphic and that it was OK not to watch the slide show he was about to present.

"If you do not want to see them, I ask you to look down at your table, or look away," O'Brien said.

No one did - not a single one of the audience members, mostly first or second-time DWI offenders, who were ordered to attend Wednesday's Impact DWI panel at Santa Fe Community College.

As O'Brien's presentation continued, things got quiet.

Aside from the clicks of O'Brien's remote control to change the images on the room's large screens, the only sounds were occasional, under-thebreath reactions of horror: "Jesus." "Oh, no." "My God."

O'Brien, a Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department lieutenant, eventually provided narration for the photographs of fatal DWI crashes. The first set of slides, he said, was chosen specifically for Wednesday's panel.

"It's a special night because we're approaching a year since five members of the Collins-Gonzales family were killed by Dana Papst," O'Brien said.

'Needless death'

O'Brien remembers Nov. 11, 2006 - a year ago today - vividly.

A sergeant at the time, he arrived at the scene about 45 minutes after five Collins-Gonzales family members from Las Vegas, N.M., died in a head-on crash on Interstate 25 east of Santa Fe.

Only one survived.

Papst, a Santa Fe Opera employee who was driving a pickup the wrong way and had a blood-alcohol content four times the state's legal limit, smashed into the family's minivan. Papst also died that night.

O'Brien and other responders - law enforcement and emergency personnel - say they struggle with images from that night and don't need a slide show to relive it.

"I think about it every day I go to work," O'Brien said. "The sad truth is these things happen over and over and over again."

Since the incident, O'Brien has volunteered to speak to DWI offenders at the monthly impact panel. He said it helps him cope with the tragedy.

More important, he said, he hopes to teach people the dangers of drunken driving and prevent "needless death."

"They don't know what it's like to wake up a family at four in the morning, telling them that another family member won't be coming home again," O'Brien said.

Arriving on scene

Last Nov. 11, Sheriff's Department Cpl. Bill Ritch was dispatched at 8:26 p.m., about 20 minutes after the Papst crash.

"I knew a couple of people had been killed," Ritch recalled recently. "But I didn't know the extent until I arrived on scene."

Ritch had just started his shift. Not so for Santa Fe County Fire Department Battalion Capt. Reed Shelton, who had just finished dinner after being on duty for 30 hours - it's not uncommon for Shelton to work as many as 48 hours in a row.

Shelton, who was stationed at the county fire administration building off N.M. 14 south of town, hopped in his department pickup and drove about nine miles to the crash scene.

Like Ritch, Shelton had no idea what he was about to see.

"The radio call was a 29 Delta," said Shelton. "Which means a serious motor vehicle accident with injuries. Then we heard there were children involved."

Sheriff's Department Cpl. Joe McLaughlin, who would become the department's lead investigator of the Papst crash, arrived shortly after Ritch and Shelton.

Remembering that night recently, he said officers must brace themselves for fatalities before arriving on the scene. "The soul and spirit is gone," McLaughlin said. He said a cold thought process is not meant in disrespect to the deceased. "It's the easiest way to deal with it, to get the scene processed."

But Nov. 11, 2006, would tax that dispassionate resolve.

The first Collins-Gonzales family member was confirmed dead at about 8:15 p.m. Four more would soon follow.

Killed were Renee Collins-Gonzales, 39, and Paul Gonzales, 35, and three daughters: Alisha Garcia, 17; Jacquelynn Gonzales, 11; and Selena Gonzales, 10.