'Put your phone down': Distracted driver warns others of the costs

Shyann Ericksen was driving to summer school one day last summer, waiting to turn left at an Eagan intersection. An oncoming car was just about to pass her.

The 18-year-old Shakopee woman had just read a text when she made the left — and hit the oncoming car, badly injuring a toddler who is still struggling to recover from his injuries.

Now she's telling her story, hoping drivers in Minnesota will take distracted driving's risks more seriously if they know how high the stakes can be.

"I looked down at my phone because I heard it vibrate," she recalled. "So, I looked at it and I read the text message from my best friend, and then I put the phone back down, because I saw the car, like out of my peripheral, and then I turned left before I looked again."

The crash knocked Ericksen out. She broke an ankle and damaged her knee. A passerby helped her out of the smashed car.

"And then I walked across the street, and I just stood there, I wasn't sure what to do next," she said. "I was like, 'What's going on?' Going into shock. And I was crying, and I remember seeing the other car, with the passengers in it, and I remember seeing the car seat. My heart dropped into my stomach. It was terrifying."

Fifteen-month-old Henry Knoof was in that car seat. He was hurt much worse than Ericksen.

His mom, Kelsey Dyals, described the scene months later.

"I got out immediately, I ran to Henry's side to see if he was OK. And I saw that his mouth was bleeding," Dyals recalled.

Although he was in the back seat, Henry had suffered a serious head injury. He had to have surgery, and wound up in a medically induced coma. He's still on anti-seizure medication. An attorney for his parents says the boy is still struggling with his injuries.

Ericksen has problems of her own.

"I was charged with criminal vehicular operation resulting in great bodily harm," Ericksen said, adding that she pleaded guilty to the felony charge in January.

She's also had to drop out of high school and take another job to pay her restitution.

Ericksen says she cringes now when she sees other people in cars, on their phones, doing things other than driving and watching what they're doing. She says she thinks of Henry, and what she did, every day.

"I don't think anyone really takes it seriously, 'cause they're like, 'It's not going to happen to me,'" she said. "'It only happens to other people, you know. I am invincible. I can do this. This is me multitasking. And not screwing up.' But it's like one day, one of these days, you're going to find out that you're completely wrong."

That's already happening to thousands of other people, officials say.

Distracted driving played a role in nearly 17,000 crashes last year and killed more than 50 people on Minnesota roads, said Donna Berger, director of the state's Office of Traffic Safety.

Texting-while-driving citations in Minnesota

"In the 1970s, drinking and driving was out of control. And now today the culture is, it's not acceptable to drink and drive," Berger said.

"People look at people and go, 'Oh no, you can't get behind the wheel. You need to call a cab.' And distracted driving, and texting and driving, is coming up to that," Berger added. "We need people to speak up and if you see someone engaging in a distracted behavior, you need to speak up and say, 'That's not OK. You're putting your life in danger, you're putting my life in danger.'"

Law enforcement has stepped up efforts to stop distracted driving.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funded a weeklong enforcement crackdown earlier this month in Minnesota.

Police cited more than 900 drivers for texting behind the wheel over the six-day campaign that ended April 18. Overall, citations for texting while driving have nearly quadrupled in Minnesota since 2010.

But Erickson says drivers need to worry more about the people in the car ahead of them than about a cop with a citation book behind them.

"Put your phone down. Put it in the glove box. Put it in the trunk. Don't look at it," she said. "If you need to, if you absolutely need to, you pull over. Pull over into a parking lot or onto the shoulder of the highway or freeway or wherever you are. If it's really that important, just stop. Stop what you're doing."