‘I sit here and look for her’

Woman’s death motivates family crusade against drunk driving

WINDOW ROCK

Two years after they lost her to a drunk driver, it still feels like she’s going to come home.

That’s what Virginia David’s sister said during the “Walk Like MADD” Saturday in Window Rock.

Priscilla Begay-Gibbs, from Black Canyon City, Arizona, remembered her older sister as a kind and good woman who loved her children dearly. On that fateful Thursday morning, Aug. 13, 2015, Begay-Gibbs said her sister left for work fully expecting to be home. That would not happen.

She said she and her husband were at a VFW post event in Black Canyon City when her sister called her and told her their sister was killed by a drunk driver.

The accident happened on Highway 264, about 16 miles west of Window Rock.

According to Begay-Gibbs, David, a non-emergency medical transport driver transporting a patient to Tsehootsooí Medical Center, was traveling eastbound when the drunk driver collided with her head-on.

She and the patient she was transporting both died. Begay-Gibbs said the drunk driver was also killed.

She said the patient’s family also lost a loved one. “I want to reach out to that family and see if they want to join us, but they’re still going through their healing process too,” she said. “They lost a mother too. So, it was two moms that were killed that day.”

Two years later, Begay-Gibbs said the walk helped her and family but, mostly, it helped David’s children and her mother, Jane Begay. She said her mother was still in the process of handling the loss of her daughter, but was not ready to go back to her home in Lower Greasewood, Arizona, because David used to live next to her.

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