Distracted Driver Talks About Crash That Killed Mother Of 2
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- On Monday, a distracted driver talked for the first time about the crash that killed a 33-year-old mother.
Last June, Christopher Weber, then 25, picked up his cell phone to make a bank transaction while he was driving in Rock County.
His truck crashed into Andrea Boeve, of Steen, who was bicycling with her two young daughters behind her in a bike trailer.
Boeve died, but her daughters Claire and Mallory survived. One of Boeve's daughters suffered five broken ribs, while the other received minor injuries.
About ten days before the accident, Boeve and her husband, Matt, had just broken ground on their dream home. When she wasn't working part-time as a nurse practitioner, she was with her daughters.
Weber pleaded guilty to distracted driving last November. He was just released after spending one year at Nobles County Jail, and spoke at a press conference Monday morning. He said his actions can't be changed and he feels terrible that he made the wrong choice one year ago.
"There hasn't been one day since the accident where I haven't thought about Andrea or Matt," Weber said. "I never thought in a million years this would be me."
Weber is a father of two small children, too, and a member of the military. He was on his bank's voicemail system the day of the crash; he wasn't texting, but he was distracted for just a moment.
Weber said he never saw them. He and first responders tried CPR to save Andrea Boeve's life, but it was too late.
"My heart dropped," Weber said. "It was my fault. I could've prevented it."
Boeve's husband acknowledged that he, too, had been a distracted driver many times before. But not anymore.
Matt Boeve released a statement through Minnesota State Patrol. He said phones make our lives easier, but that in this case a phone made life much tougher. He asked everyone to think twice before using a cell phone while driving.
"We were the perfect match, we were soulmates," Boeve said in a video released by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. "We'll miss her forever."
Weber will have three years of supervised probation.
He made it clear that his community outreach efforts are not mandated by the courts, but because he wants others to know what can happen by making one bad decision.