Summoned from his bed at 2:00 in the morning, Jeff Gaia made his way to the site of an auto crash to pick up the body of a drunk driver who did not make it home that night.

Arriving at the scene, he made his way over the broken glass and pieces of metal that littered the ground to a member of the rescue squad who directed him to a car where the victim still sat inside.

Peering into the vehicle, Jeff saw that the steering wheel was jammed tightly against the man's chest, his left arm supported on the armrest of the door. In his hand, secure in his grasp, was his last can of beer of the evening.

He gazed down the road where another wrecked car sat in the now-still night, the frantic arrival of the rescue workers having been in vain. Inside were two more broken bodies, victims of the drunken driver's inability to drive safely.

"He didn't get up saying, 'Tonight I'm going out at 2:00 in the morning and killing two people and myself,'" says Jeff with the intensity of a man who has seen the familiar episode repeated too many times during his nearly 11 years as a mortician. "But he did, and now family members have to come in and make funeral arrangements for deaths that were preventable. If people want to drink that's their decision, but when they get behind the wheel and drink and drive, that's deadly business. Drinking and driving is a choice that kills people and takes innocent lives."

In his work as a mortician, he saw first hand and on a routine basis the crushing pain of family members who lost children too young in life. Outside of his career, he had been involved with children for eight years, volunteering as a Little League coach and in other youth activities.

It was in his position as a coach that he first gained insight into youthful violence. A fifth grader who was out of hand lost control when Jeff told him to sit down. He screamed at Jeff, "I'm going to knock your head off!" Taken aback, Jeff allowed another coach to calm the youth. When the game was over and the other children had gone home, however, he noticed the boy sitting alone outside the double doors of the school. No one had come to pick him up.

He offered the boy a ride home and, since the child lived outside the city, the two had plenty of time to become acquainted during the drive. Jeff learned the boy was having problems at home: "I found out that things that happen don't 'just happen,'" he says, "there's a reason kids act the way they act. He just took his family problems out on me. We became good friends after that."

He discovered he had an unusual rapport with children, gaining their trust through his genuine concern for their well-being. He recalled a note being passed to him while he sat in church one morning that said, "I'm taking pills."

I'm thinking, "What is going on?" he relates. "I turned around and there was a girl sitting behind me. Later I asked her what was wrong and she said, 'I'm taking drugs." I told her, "You need to just say no and stop doing that."

"Later on after I got to thinking about what I had said to her, I realized you have to do more than tell kids to "Just say no", you have to tell them why - Why? Because you can die. I had another talk with her and she stopped using drugs."

Working as a mortician in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee, Jeff found that, while each locale has different customs and rituals in the way funeral services are performed, one thing that never changes is that young people and adults make decisions that cost their lives - deaths that could be avoided.

The 31-year-old Barlow, Kentucky native moved to McKenzie in 1997 when his wife, the former Dena Petty of Greenfield, became pregnant with their first child. In his work at Brummitt's Funeral Home in McKenzie, Jeff continued to be dismayed by the youthful deaths he encountered.

"I decided that instead of just seeing death it was time I needed to try and prevent it, especially young people's deaths because it is so sad," he says. "The worst thing is to have to pick a kid up who's died - to put a kid in a body bag when that death could have been prevented."

While recognizing the value of programs like DARE and the validity of statements like "Just say no", Jeff realized that, through his work, he had a whole different perspective on three preventable causes of violent deaths in young people: drugs, drinking and driving, and peer violence, whether in or out of school. Coupled with his work with teens over the past eight years, he felt he had the insight and knowledge to make a difference.

He put together a program based on his experiences and delivered it to every school and organization where he could gain acceptance. In his first year he spoke to children at 15 West Tennessee schools including Huntingdon High School, Crockett County, Clarksville, South Fulton, Obion County Central, and Carroll County Vocational School among others.

The response he received from teachers and principals was overwhelming, he says, "because they believe it's been making an impact."

"The kids listen when you talk about death and they listen to the stories I tell," he says, "and how I know they listen is they ask questions. A lot of them have their own personal experiences in their own families. Three out of every five people know someone who's had a DUI and two in five know someone who was killed in a DUI. I prove that every time I go to a school."

He talks about the signs of death that are everywhere in funeral homes, cemeteries and in the crosses and flowers that are placed along roadsides where tragic accidents occurred. These tributes warn against similar fates that can befall those who are not careful in their choices. "If we don't remember history we're doomed to repeat it," Jeff says, "so don't let them have died in vain; let's remember them because we don't want to relive the history that they went through. As one mother said, 'it's preventable pain - preventable pain and sorrow,' because her son made a decision that cost him his life."

He appeals to the natural curiosity of youth and adults alike, showing them pictures of automobile crashes, hearses, caskets, and death certificates. He lets them see and touch previously unused casket cranking keys and heavy black body bags while answering questions about funeral home processes.

Drawing on a familiar tragedy in history, Jeff pulls out a laminated copy of the New York Times, its headline blaring the Titanic disaster. He relates the three major mistakes made by the crew that resulted in the loss of around 1513 of the more than 2220 passengers onboard. First, thinking the ship was unsinkable, the craft set out with an insufficient number of lifeboats on board; then, overly confident, the ship sailed at full speed ahead through frigid waters; and finally, when reports began to come in warning of ice in the area, they were boldly disregarded.

"They kept going full steam ahead because it was said that the Titanic was unsinkable. There were actually people on the ship while it was sinking that didn't believe it would sink," says Jeff, "They had six warnings - how many times have your teachers warned you? How many times have the DARE officers warned you? How many times have your parents warned you? Much more than six; you think your life is invincible but the decisions you make can cost you your life or cause bodily harm. If you don't heed advice, bad things can and do happen."

He brings out a copy of a local newspaper saying, "I don't want the headlines here reading that a teenager was killed because of drinking and driving."

Sharing the obituaries from an unrelated city, he shows the children that people don't have to be old to die. "You can be young," he says, continuing, "not all deaths are preventable but the ones I'm talking about are."
  

Visual aids help him get his point across to his audiences. Holding up a yardstick, he relates, "A yard stick is how close we come to each other on a two-lane road, almost within a yardstick away. That's the length it takes to go over the yellow line to have a head-on collision and people are going to die."

Children riding with children is another concern. "Freshmen, eighth graders and seventh graders - a lot of them have to have a ride," says Jeff. When the driver is drinking, children often hesitate to call their parents. Jeff counsels them to make the call: "There are some wrecks where the person driving lives and the person riding dies. What is your life worth?" he asks, "Parents would rather come pick you up."

"I've had kids actually laughing about being thrown around in a truck," he says incredulously, "I thought, 'He doesn't realize how close to death he really got.' Another child related that he was the designated driver in his group. I asked him what that meant and he said he limits himself to two or three drinks. 'That's not it,' I told him, 'the designated driver doesn't drink at all.'"

Jeff shares with the kids what he calls his "Three-P Theory".
(1) Precious: Every person's life is precious to his or her family and friends.
(2) Priceless: Life is priceless - "All the gold in Fort Knox isn't enough to sell one's life for. If I said 'I'm going to give it to you but it will cost you your life,' you wouldn't take it. Yet you'll risk your life in drinking and driving or for a $25-$30 hit of drugs," he tells the children.
(3) Protection: People have to protect themselves by making wise choices because bad choices can take lives.

So deeply involved do children become when listening to one of Jeff's presentations that they lose any fear of reprisal, choosing to speak out about their own experiences. "A girl in one class raised her hand, saying, 'When I use marijuana my heart rate goes out of control.' Her teacher stood up and said, 'That's all the information we need right now.' But when I'm telling this there is no fear, they don't care who knows."

Realizing that kids sometimes turn to drugs when they are having problems, he advises, "If you're having a problem in your life and you're going to seek advice, sometimes the people you seek advise from are drowning in their own problems. And sometimes they are using drugs and tell you to use them too because they will make you feel better. They're drowning and getting you to drown with them; you're trying to get help from someone who is drowning themselves. Drugs will never be a problem solver, they are only going to add more problems. You may forget, but the next day you'll be staring right at the problem you had dreaded; when you get off the high, the problem is still going to be there."

Children have misconceptions about their actions that can also be dangerous. Many don't believe anything is wrong with using marijuana, Jeff relates, although marijuana use impairs drivers just as alcohol does and contains other dangers. Also, he advises, "One time can kill. The first time you use drugs, the first time you are involved in drinking and driving, can kill."

He encourages treating drugs as poisons, relating the preventive measures taken in his own home to protect his three-year-old son, Matt. "We have to lock up stuff like cleaners and other things because he gets in the cabinets and he would taste them if he could," Jeff tells the children. "You were that way at one time, too. Now, if I took a cup of bleach and handed it to you and said drink it, you'd think I was crazy. But you're putting poison in your body every time you take drugs. You're old enough to make good decisions; if you're old enough not to take bleach, you're old enough not to take crank."

Part of the problem is the lack of a healthy respect or fear of circumstances and substances that can kill. According to a popular poll, the top three fears of most people are: third, heights; second, public speaking; and the number one fear, snakes.

Realizing this, Jeff tells students that he has their number one fear in a box. When a child opens the box he is confronted with lifelike, embalmed rattlesnakes, eliciting a fear reaction in the child.

"We have a fear of these things yet we don't fear drugs," Jeff says, "We don't have a fear of drinking and driving and we don't have a fear of riding with someone who is drinking. If we could have a fear about it, we might be able to save lives. People do say we fear death but that's not one of the fears I hear from kids."

To put a realistic slant on the serious subject of youthful deaths, he displays body bags in which male and female dummies lie, covered with white sheets. Uncovering the dummies, he tells stories about things that have happened to take youthful lives, while showing the contents of police department evidence bags containing items like class rings, a wallet, car keys, a purse, and brush.

"The body bags are very effective," he says, "What I try to tell them is that this is real life. This is what is happening in every town in the United States and in every town in West Tennessee." He acknowledges, "Regardless of what I say they're going to make their own decisions, but the program does save lives."

Jeff says the increase in school violence is in part a reaction of downtrodden children who are the victims of bullies. Pushed beyond their youthful mechanisms of coping, they react violently, sometimes taking the lives of their real or imagined oppressors. It is important, he says, that kids realize not to make fun of other people: "People that are making fun of others, if we look in their lives, we could find something to sit around and laugh about," he relates solemnly, "and there are always consequences to our decisions."

While flicking through the channels on TV one evening, an ad for "Stop the Violence, Face the Music" caught Jeff's attention. The popular, non-profit service was formed to counteract negative influences that affect today's youths by offering counseling, education and positive direction for young lives.

As he listened to the commercial, Jeff realized that the "Stop the Violence, Face the Music" organization was similarly rooted in helping youth understand that they are accountable for their actions and choices. According to "Stop the Violence" literature, STV "helps young people understand the long term consequences of violence, crime and substance abuse to both themselves and our society, so they can choose to be mature and responsible citizens."

Jeff contacted the organization and found that Managing Director John Karroll was as excited about his presentation as Jeff was about "Stop the Violence". The two entities have joined forces to produce Jeff's efforts in a presentation called, "Choices for Life." Soon, Jeff's program will be included in the "Stop the Violence" website at www.stv.net with information also available on cd-rom and in brochures.

Says Karroll, "Stop the Violence is looking forward to the new educational program, Choices for Life, that Jeff has produced. We feel this program will save lives wherever it is presented."

While the program is targeted for middle schools, high schools, colleges, youth organizations and juvenile centers, its message is important to youth and adults alike.

"What I'm trying to do is save lives so parents and grandparents do not have to go through the process of losing their precious children. I'm trying, that's all we can do," Jeff says. He credits his employer, Brummitt Funeral Home, with being supportive in his endeavors as well as providing the body bags, casket keys and other items for his presentation.

Companies and organizations can sponsor the Choice for Life program and other STV events. For more information, go to www.stv.net or call 1-888-647-STOP. Jeff can be contacted by email at gaiaembalmer@hotmail.com or at 731-352-9618.