STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With Christmas six days away and the borough in the throes of a prescription drug epidemic, Mary Ann Edkins' message could not be more timely.
The Annadale resident lost her vibrant 18-year-old daughter almost five years ago in a horrific crash in Woodrow caused by a young driver, John Sambuco, high on drugs and alcohol.
"When he drove his car in that condition, [John Sambuco] started a chain of events that killed Mariana, changed the course of his life, our lives and lots of people's lives forever," Mrs. Edkins, 53, said in an interview last week. "Every day I open the Advance and somebody is arrested for driving under the influence. When is it going to stop? It's mind-boggling that people would still drink and drive."
Mrs. Edkins never got to say good-bye to her youngest daughter, a former track star, who easily cultivated friendships, and loved reading, the color hot pink and flirting with boys.
To this day, she is haunted by the image of Mariana, lifeless, on a hospital bed, a breathing tube still in her mouth, a white blanket covering her bruised and still-warm body up to her neck.
That's why in this season of joy and hope, Mrs. Edkins implores drivers, especially younger ones, to take whatever measures are necessary to avoid getting behind the wheel after drinking or taking drugs and to prevent others from doing so.
Whether it be as simple as arranging for a designated driver or calling a cab or as "extreme" as removing the car's battery or even flattening tires, Mrs. Edkins said lives are in the balance.
"Please don't even say drinking and driving in the same sentence ... do whatever it takes to make sure you are not driving a motor vehicle under the influence or while intoxicated, even a little bit," she said. "It may sound extreme, but killing someone's kid is the extreme, death is the extreme, an action that will ... cause lots of suffering and change a lot of people, which never should happen and could so easily be avoided."
Sambuco, of Rossville, then 21, was admittedly intoxicated on beer and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax when the crash occurred Jan. 10, 2006, around 12:05 a.m. on Woodrow Road near Latham Place. Prosecutors said Sambuco's blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.
Police said he was speeding at 60 to 80 mph and driving on the wrong side of the road with his headlights off when his SUV plowed head-on into a car in which Mariana was a passenger. The auto's driver, Josephine DiDonato, then 18, a Charleston resident, suffered head and back injuries in the collision.
In July 2006, Sambuco pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to second-degree murder. It was the top count against him. Now 26, he is serving a 15-year-to-life prison sentence. He is not eligible for parole until January 2021, according to online state Department of Correctional Services records.
Sambuco did not make a statement at his sentencing, although both the judge and his lawyer, Louis E. Diamond, said he had expressed remorse over the incident. Diamond said his client hoped to turn his life around.
In an emotional and eloquent statement moments before he was sent to prison, Mrs. Edkins wished the defendant hope and redemption, according to Advance reports.
She said she still feels that way.
Mrs. Edkins, who earlier this year celebrated her 30th wedding anniversary with her husband, Charles, said the family has endured by binding even tighter. The compassion of friends, neighbors and relatives has also sustained her.
"I want people to be hopeful," she said.
Mrs. Edkins' impassioned plea comes as prescription drug abuse surges on Staten Island and impaired drivers threaten to compromise the safety of Island roads.
Through Oct. 26 — the most recent date for which statistics are available — 432 people have been arrested in the borough this year for driving while intoxicated or impaired by drugs or alcohol, said a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan. That figure virtually mirrors the 434 arrests made for DWI or DUI over the same period last year.
Overall, 544 individuals were arrested on the Island for such crimes in 2009.
Donovan, who has aggressively prosecuted DWI and DUI cases during his seven-year administration, said driving drunk or impaired is "just as dangerous as randomly firing a gun into a crowd."
"Anyone who thinks that DWI is not a serious crime needs to sit with the Edkins family as I have on numerous occasions," he said last week. "Their daughter was randomly killed by an intoxicated driver. Anyone on the road that night could have been killed by John Sambuco. I make no apologies for the tough stance I've taken on the issue."
Prescription drug abuse may be even more troubling.
This year alone, there have been at least five separate robberies at pharmacy counters and a restaurant owner was accused of using fake MRIs to get oxycodone prescriptions from several doctors. In addition, a medical office employee has been accused of forging prescriptions for oxycodone and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, and a ring of young suspects charged with selling pills out of shopping-center parking lots.
Oxycodone comes in a variety of brand names and dosages, with more potent, time-release versions like 80 mg OxyContin fetching upwards of $60 a pill on the street. Abusers often crush the pills to defeat the time-release process and snort or inject the powder.
In 2009, doctors and medical professionals in the borough wrote nearly 115,000 prescriptions for oxycodone — far more per capita than any other borough. That's basically one prescription for every four to five people living here, according to an Advance analysis of state Health Department prescription data.
Last month, Dr. Felix Lanting, an 83-year-old Grant City family physician, was accused of helping fuel the epidemic by writing a staggering 3,029 prescriptions between April and October of this year.
He was arrested for conspiring to distribute oxycodone; his case is pending in Brooklyn federal court.