• 07
  • May
    2010

The car accident left former Navy Captain Jack Kriz with liver, respiratory and kidney failure. 

It also left him with a traumatic brain injury, requiring nearly a year of rehabilitation and hundreds of hours of therapy. Two years after the accident, Kriz remains bound to a wheelchair and will never walk again, much less play sports with his children.

As for the man who tore Jack Kriz's life apart?

Nicholas Griffith was driving with a suspended license, due to a prior DUI arrest, when he smashed his pickup into Kriz's Toyota Prius, demolishing the front end and trapping Kriz inside. One would think a car accident like that, leaving the other driver with a traumatic brain injury, would make a person rethink his or her decisions and take more responsibility. 

Still, as Jack Kriz was struggling through the agonizing recovery process, Griffith was stopped for a second DUI.

Finally, in late April, Griffith was called to court to answer for the damage he had caused. At the trial, Kriz described the damage done, the challenges he now faces and the cost to his family. After all of this, Griffith was sentenced - to six months in prison, 400 hours of community service at a brain injury institute and three years of probation.

It hardly seemed like a fair sentence and Kriz's wife said as much.

Six months in prison is less than the amount of time Jack Kriz spent in rehab. 400 hours of community service is less than half the number of hours he spent learning how to function again. Three years of probation is nothing compared to the lifetime of disability Kriz now faces.

It was a disappointing conclusion to an already tragic case.

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