Toni Bolis' sister speaks to Washington Township High School sophmores about dangers of distracted driving
WASHINGTON TWP. — Two days. Toni Donato-Bolis was due to deliver her second child in just two days when, driving home from her last doctor’s appointment, her car was hit head-on on Pitman-Downer Road. The other driver swerved into her lane when he was allegedly distracted by his GPS.
Just a mile from her home, Donato-Bolis was killed, along with her unborn baby. A son, to be named Ryan Jeffrey, or R.J.The June 1, 2011 accident changed her family’s life forever.
Now Angela Donato, Donato-Bolis’ 22-year-old sister, is on a mission to save other families from the same horror she felt that day.
She spoke to group after group of Washington Township High School sophomores all day Friday, warning them about the serious danger in driving while distracted.
Students filed into the 9/10 auxiliary gym, many wearing the green T-shirts sold in memory of Donato-Bolis.
With an image of a cell phone crossed out on the front, the shirt’s message read loud and clear.
So did Donato-Bolis’. The Washington Township High School graduate, Cabrini College graduate student and aspiring teacher introduced herself, and her story. Before delving further, she showed them a 10-minute video, produced by AT&T, on the senseless deaths and lingering remorse caused by texting while driving.
Then, in a moment that drew more than a few tears from the audience, Donato recalled the details of the crash play-by-play, and the moments that she’ll never forget.
At 8:23 a.m., Donato’s mother, Mary, got a frantic call from Donato-Bolis. She said she was on Pitman-Downer Road and was just involved in a serious accident. As soon as the line went dead, Donato and her family rushed to help her. Less than a mile from the scene, the family was the first to arrive.
Before police or paramedics got to the scene, Donato approached her sister’s car, finding the driver’s side door “completely smashed.” She saw her sister’s head and arm leaning out of her window. She was unconscious, and Donato feared the worst.
“Her lips were blue. I knew she was gone,” Donato told the students. Concerned about the other vehicle involved in the crash, Donato searched for the driver. She found him, 21-year-old Daniel Pereira of Glassboro, sitting on the grass by the curb, holding his phone horizontally and texting.
She said she couldn’t believe what she saw. He wasn’t checking to see how Donato-Bolis was, he wasn’t calling emergency services, he was texting. Donato said he told her that he was using his GPS when he crashed.
She stopped there, telling students that nine months later, the accident is still being investigated. No charges have been filed yet.
After the crash, Donato-Bolis’ family filled a hospital waiting room. It was there they learned that her baby—a boy, eight pounds and two-ounces—did not survive.
“For three to five minutes there was screaming, crying, banging hands against the wall,” Donato said. Soon after, they were told that with six shattered vertebrae and massive bleeding. Donato-Bolis would also not survive.
“It was like I got stabbed in the stomach,” Donato said. “We knew our lives would never be the same.”
But she stressed that she wasn’t telling the students this story to scare, upset or worry them. Her only motive is to prevent another family from experiencing that pain.
“There are more than 3,000 deaths due to distracted driving each year. You can be the word, you can be the person to say ‘Let me text for you,’ or ‘I’ll change the radio station.’ You have to spread the word,” Donato said.
She asked each of the students to sign a pledge to not text and drive, and express their support for legislation that Donato is trying to push through the state Senate, which would make penalties for distracted driving the same as driving while intoxicated.
“Your word is so powerful,” Donato told the students.
In the few minutes before they returned to class, many of the students came up to hug Donato, make donations toward her cause and pick up a green bracelet to remind them to put the phone down and focus on the road.
“It was really touching and really inspirational,” sophomore Adelyn Simeone said. “It’s just that one thing that can grow into another thing and really make people stop and think about what they’re doing.”
And that’s all Donato needs to hear to keep going.
“If I can get one kid to listen, then I’m saving a life,” Donato said. Both her and her mother, Mary, speak of Donato-Bolis as an incredibly strong, giving woman who dedicated much of her life to helping others. Mary Donato said she couldn’t be more proud that her daughter was taking up this cause, and making sure that something positive will come from Donato-Bolis’ untimely death.
“[Donato’s] getting her strength and inspiration from Toni. She was an extremely strong woman,” Mary Donato said. And as Donato is getting her strength from the memory of her sister, Mary is getting her strength from Donato. She sat in the back of the room as her daughter presented her family’s heart-wrenching story.
“I will follow her wherever she goes. I’m behind her 100 percent, as long as she needs me,” she said. “This way, Toni’s not gone in vain. That’s how she’ll live on.”
If it wasn’t for her ambitious goals—Donato aims to take her presentation to schools up and down the East Coast—she doesn’t know how she would wake up in the morning. But by keeping her sister’s memory alive, and preventing other senseless deaths, she’s able to move forward with her life, without leaving her sister behind.
“It’s healing me. It’s getting me through,” Donato said. Which is something she says her altruistic, loving sister would have done if the tables were turned. “If it was the other way around, she would be doing this for me.”
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