12. Unhappy Birthday

Gap-fill exercise


A drunk driver speeding along in his SUV the 60 freeway last night killed three of people in a sedan. The sedan had slowed a crawl because of construction work on the . Four lanes were merged into two. The Department Transportation crew was making repairs to a three-mile of highway. Hundreds of bright orange traffic cones the merger. Four heavy duty trucks were parked the emergency lanes. Their brightly glowing signs said, “. Be prepared to stop. Construction ahead.” Vehicle traffic slowed to about 3 mph.

Missing all of warnings, the drunk driver, going at least 50 , plowed into the sedan. The sedan driver, a programmer, was a recent immigrant to America. In passenger seat was his wife, and in the seat were his 6-year-old daughter and his 8-year-old . It was 9 p.m. The family had been a restaurant to celebrate the little girl’s birthday. never knew what hit them.

The impact of collision caused the sedan to explode in flames. , the sedan driver managed to crawl out of car seconds after the explosion. Third degree burns much of his body. His chances for survival slim. His life, as he knew it, is . His loved ones were burned beyond recognition. The was a skeleton of metal.

The 28-year-old drunk not only unhurt, but was able to escape his smoldering SUV and run away, leaving two bottles behind. The police tracked him down this . He claimed that his brakes had failed. It revealed that he had four prior convictions for under the influence in the past 10 years.