Mom crusades against drunken driving

LYNNFIELD – Dinyce Peters learned her 21-year-old son Alexander had been killed in a drunken driving wreck when she got an early morning call from an employee at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital on Aug. 9, 2008.The hospital employee told Peters her son had been killed in an accident, she said.The family received two more calls, one telling her they weren’t sure if the body was indeed her son’s, and the other saying it was him and they needed the family to come to the hospital.”The whole world just crashed down on us,” Peters said. “It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and they just had him there lying on a gurney, bloody and dirty. He had on a cross I had given him early for his birthday, and it was all encrusted with blood. The cross, his shoes and his wallet, that’s all I had left of my son to take home.”Peters said the family viewed his cold, lifeless body in the same hospital where he was born.”I had him at Melrose-Wakefield, and to remember when I had him in my arms when he was a baby wrapped in a blanket with nothing on and wailing and then to see him wrapped in a white body bag,” she said. “It was devastating.”Since the loss of her son, who she described as a fun-loving “bigger than life” sports enthusiast, Peters has become a crusader against drunken driving, while also working with family and friends to hold an annual Slow Pitch Softball tournament to raise money to provide scholarships to Lynnfield High School students in her son’s name. This year’s event is scheduled for June 23.She has spoken to numerous groups, including lawyers, police and even convicted drunken drivers, but she wants to talk to high school students because she feels she can reach them.”I think I have something to say to them. My son was so young when he died,” she said.People interested in having Peters talk to high school students can contact her at [email protected], 54, said her son played on multiple sports teams at both Malden Catholic High School and then Lynnfield High School, where he graduated in 2005.Standing about 6-foot-2-inches and weighing 225 pounds, Alexander Peters had finished his junior year at UMass Lowell, where he was majoring in criminal justice, his mother said.”He was a person who really liked to make you laugh. He didn’t take himself too seriously,” his mother said, adding he was also compassionate.”He was the kind of person who if you were upset, he’d try to make you laugh to cheer you up. And when I was mad at him he’d stand next to me and say, ‘Mom are you still mad at me’ and he’d be towering over me,” she said, laughing at the memory. “Then he’d say, ‘When are you not going to be mad at me?'”His size and spirit made Peters think her son was invincible.”You almost think somebody that size is exempt from being hurt, but they’re not,” she said.Leaving behind the angerHer son died after he and several friends spent part of the night drinking at a bar in Malden.One of Alexander Peters’ closest friends crashed his car, killing Alexander, who was a passenger in the back seat, Dinyce Peters said.The driver, who was too young to be drinking legally, walked away unharmed, Peters said.She read a victim impact statement at the 20-year-old’s sentencing hearing, but when the judge moved to send the driver to state prison, her family interceded, Peters said.”This wasn’t planned ? For him to be in a place like that, what good will that do?” Peters asked. “We actually had to plead with the judge not to send him there.”Instead of a state prison term, the driver received two years in the House of Corrections and got out early for good behavior, she said.Peters said she maintains a good relationship with the driver and they have even visited her son’s grave together.Asked if she was angry with the driver, Peters said, “I was angry with the decision that they made. But because it was an accident, I couldn’t go down that road. If I ever went down the road to anger it would have destroyed me.”She said her faith, family and friends help