Students filled the library Tuesday to hear a guest speaker explain what it’s like to be found lifeless on the side of the road by emergency workers after deciding to drive home drunk.

The presentation began with music playing and a woman with a missing arm walking down the aisle as a slideshow with unsettling photos played on the screen at the front of the room.

Sarah Panzau-Evans begins her optimistic but serious message to the student body.

“Just hours before these photos were taken I was with my friends, the people who are supposed to care about me the most,” Panzau-Evans said.

Panzau-Evans recountded the night when her friends let her drive home drunk.

“I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt and so as the car flipped up onto the guardrail and was drug for 40 feet,” Panzau-Evans said. “I was hung outside the drivers window and was dragged along with it.”

Panzau’s blood alcohol level was 0.308 the night she decided to drink and drive.

“Stuff like this isnt supposed to happen to young people like us,” Panzau-Evans said. “We think we are invincible we live like we are immortal because bad things can’t happen to us.”

Before the accident that left her with an amputated arm and 38 surgeries, Panzau-Evens was a three year varsity starter in high school, and a two-time all American Volleyball player at her junior college.

“I was never meant to be in a car crash and given a zero percent chance to live,” Panzau-Evans said. “I wasn’t meant to look like this for the rest of my life.”

During Panzau-Evans’s sophomore year of college she dropped out to become a bartender.

“I thought a life of partying, drinking and having fun was better than sports and an education could have ever been,” Panzau-Evans said.

Senior Omar Bailey, who has received a football scholarship, said he related to her story because of her history as an athlete.

“I always knew drinking and driving was negative,” he said. “As a future college athlete I know nothing must be taken lightly.”

During her presentation Panzau-Evans, reflected on those she once considered to be her friends – the ones who let her get in a car and attempt to drive home that night.

“My so called family of friends, the people that meant so much to me, watched me stumble out of the bar barely able to walk on my own two feet,” she said.

Panzau-Evans then took a moment to address her actions and recognize that she is the one that got in the car under the influence that night.

“Luck is the only thing keeping people from ending up like me,” Panzau-Evans said. “Eventually that luck will run out.”

Students who attended the presentation said those words helped them fully grasp the dangers of drunken driving.

“It allowed me to realize that you have to consider what you’re doing and the consequences of your actions when simply getting behind the wheel,” senior Diana Torres said.

Panzau-Evans stressed the importance of calling for a ride instead of driving while under the influence by calling out a student and asking who he would call in a time of need.

“He stole the words right out of my mouth,” Panzau-Evans said. “He would call his mother and that’s who you should call instead of getting behind the wheel.”

According to www.MADD.org 28 people die a day in the United States as a result of drunken driving crashes.

“I thank god everyday that I didn’t kill someone else,” Panzau-Evans said. “And sadly it’s not the first time I had drank and drove.”

Panzau-Evans continues to talk about the result of her crash and the effects that it has left on her daily life.

“I never thought I would have to deal with this kind of emotional and physical pain on a daily basis,” she said.

Panzau-Evans said she feels like she has been given a second chance at life, going from having no heartbeat or pulse on the side of the road to sharing her life’s journey across the country. She now plans to share her story with as many young people as she can to help them understand the true dangers of drinking and driving.