By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
CADMIEL ‘Tibby’ Duscas’s first stroke of luck is that he’s alive.
The Noble Park man, 22, is also fortunate not to be in jail after nearly killing himself, his younger brother and sister, and two friends in a horrific drink-and-drug-driving crash on Pound Road, Narre Warren South, early on 20 May last year.
Last week, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court judge Greg Connellan instead set Duscas a homework assignment: to channel the “pretty horrific experience” into a campaign that will cut through to young drivers.
Mr Connellan also stripped away Duscas’s driving licence for four years – double the minimum mandatory sentence – for driving under the influence and negligently causing serious injury to his four passengers.
“It goes without saying to people in this situation that they’ll have to go to jail. My own view is that would be, in your case, a pointless exercise.
“It would return you to the community with more chance of committing offences.”
Mr Connellan told Duscas he could still impose up to 12 years’ jail time if he wasn’t satisfied with Duscas’s efforts by December.
A relieved Duscas, who had been resigned to going to jail, was willing to accept the option.
He is still paying off about $6000 damage to a resident’s fence and garden, as well as replacing a snapped power pole due to the collision.
“It’s a high price but the price could have been higher,” he told the News after the hearing.
The sounds and smells of the tumbling, spinning crash still haunt the occupants of Duscas’s now-unsalvageable Holden Commodore.
After Monday’s hearing, they seemed physically unscathed but had acute memories of their near-death experience – the frightening crunch of torn, pounded metal, blood, dust and leaking fuel.
Friend Nicole De Fevre had multiple cuts, including a “chunk of meat” taken out of her foot. She says she’s been plagued by nightmares, waking up screaming in the middle of the night.
“At the accident, we were in shock but the next night it came back to us,” she said.
“I was screaming every night – seeing the car and hearing the noise.
“At the time I thought we are going to die.”
Friend Anthony Pavouris broke a rib and spine, and punctured a lung. He remembers lying in his hospital bed unsure of how extreme his injuries were.
He’s now unemployed, unable to perform lifting at his previous warehousing job. He says he doesn’t let anyone drive him in a car anymore.
He is haunted by the sight of Duscas’s brother Daniel lying semi-conscious with his face against a still-hot exhaust pipe. He had a lung contrusion and skin grafts for the resultant burns.
Duscas’s sister Naomi ’escaped’ with a broken rib and tooth. Duscus himself had been resuscitated at the scene by a passer-by. He was in a hospital coma for several hours as doctors monitored a swollen pericardial sac near his heart.
“I don’t remember the whole night. I woke up (in hospital) to my parents’ faces. They were in tears.
“I was in a dark place but later I realised how happy I am to be alive. The engine was barely still in the car. There was just one wheel left. We could have all been paralysed or killed.”
He says his mother had got a break of dawn call from Ambulance Victoria that three of her children were in hospital. She thought Naomi and Daniel were safe in bed that night. “You don’t realise how much you mean to others when this happens,” Duscus said.
Duscas knows that as “just stupid kids” before the crash they didn’t take road safety that seriously. It will be hard work getting his message through to peers.
Among his early plans is a Facebook group, visiting schools, doing national and community media and a You-Tube clip.
When asked what message they’d like to send to their peers, Duscas says: “You’re not invulnerable”.
His brother Daniel chimes in: “Welcome to reality”.
