Reliving Nightmare To Live A Dream

In California, opening statements are slated for Monday in the trial of an alleged drunk driver accused in the deaths of two child pedestrians.

Seven-year-old Alana Pack and her 10-year-old brother, Troy, were killed in the blink of an eye in October 2003, reports National Correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

Their father, Bob Pack, says the pain is still intense: "The day-to-day living can be extremely difficult."

Carmen Pack, their mother, adds, "I woke up many times thinking about what I saw that night. I wake up with the sounds that I heard, the sound of the car hitting my children's scooters and bikes in front of my eyes."

Carmen and her children were walking to get ice cream when a car plowed into the three of them. Carmen managed to call Bob at home, and he rushed to the scene.

"I raced over to Alana and, you know, she was not responding. She was unconscious and had no pulse. …I raced back to Troy…and I started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

The driver of the car, Jimena Barreto, fled on foot, but was arrested several days later.

Bob says what he found out next shocked him: "When I read the police report, I found out she had four prior DUIs (driving under the influence incidents)."

Barreto's lawyer, Craig Wormely, insists the fatal crash was an accident: "She says she lost control of the car and instead of veering to the left as the street goes, went up on the curb and couldn't stop her car."

The Packs channeled their grief into lobbying for tougher drunk driving laws, and planning a new family.Using an egg donated by her niece, Carmen has undergone fertility treatments. She's now almost four months pregnant with twins.

"I don't think I'm ever going to be completely healed, but it's going to help me move on and continue with my life," she observes.

"You know," Bob says plainly, "we want to be parents and we want to raise a child."

Carmen explained to The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Monday, "I always knew in my heart I could not live my life without being a mom. And I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do.

"I have so much to give. I have so much love, and I want so much to be a parent that I never had doubts that this is what I wanted to do, and I am very happy now that I am pregnant. We are both very happy."

Because Barreto fled the scene and wasn't found until several days later, there were no drugs or alcohol in her body at that time, police say, so she was charged with manslaughter.

But Bob worked hard to investigate the case and says he found out she had been drinking that day and found out about the four priors DUIs, and got the charges changed to second degree murder.

He also worked to change the DUI laws in California. Previously, a judge couldn't go back further than seven years to look at priors, so when they looked up this woman, they only found two priors.

Now, that law's been changed, so the statute of limitations is ten years.

Bob told Smith that, in addition to the four DUIs on her record, Baretta's license had been suspended nine times.

He added, "It's unfortunate many laws are changed and come about through great tragedy, such as what happened to Troy and Alana."

What's more, Bob told Smith, he found a "great history of Vicodin abuse, and powerful evidence that she had taken a large amount of Vicodins that same day. And some evidence came forward, through me going out into the community, that she had been taking alcohol that day and had been abusing alcohol regularly, frequently, almost daily, from eyewitness testimony."