When Kevin Brooks tells his story to students, he begins with a montage of himself doing skateboard tricks and being active. As a result, when he takes to the stage, one can clearly see what he's lost. Brooks is confined to a wheel chair. He tours schools to talk to kids about how one bad decision can change their lives forever.
Brooks' story begins with a party, and a decision to drive home after a night of drinking with his friends. He says he was driving down a road he had travelled thousands of times before, but because of his impaired judgement, he must have taken the corner too aggressively, and rolled the car end over end, though he admits to not remembering the accident itself. He was paralyzed from the waist down, and a friend who was in the car died.
Since then, he has been visiting schools to talk to kids about what the accident has done to him, trying to get through to them, in order to keep youth from making a mistake which could change, or even end, their lives.
"I find that kids really identify with the story I tell and just with me. I come in here as someone who made the choices myself, and I'm very honest about what happened. I was the crazy guy who took those really stupid risks, so I think that people who are in that spot relate to me, because they go 'that guy is a lot like me.' It gets through to those students who are so hard to get through to, because I was that kid. I drank and drove, I partied hard, I got kicked out of school, I was as high risk as they could get," Brooks says.
The message of the show is that choices have consequences, and Brooks believes that it is a message that is important to get out to youth.
"Young people, I'm not judging or anything, I was there, but we live in the moment, and there is that feeling of invincibility and the idea that it will never happen to me. But, sometimes it does, so hopefully that message, and me being here, so that people don't make those bad choices," Brooks says.
Getting the message out about the dangers of drunk driving, or other bad choices, is something Brooks sees as an important duty, since he doesn't want other young people to end up losing their legs, or their lives.
"I'm the poster boy for why you wouldn't want to do what I did, and I'm fine with that, because I have to do something with this," Brooks notes.
Apart from the presentation, Brooks keeps a sizable online presence, from Facebook and Twitter groups to his website, at www.kevinbrooks.ca. He says it's important to keep talking to young people, so they remember the message.
"It's a great way to keep the story alive. I come here, I tell the story, but then I go home, so that's one way to keep it fresh in people's minds for that little reminder," Brooks concludes.
Kevin Brooks recently spoke at the Yorkton Regional High School.
