"Why, why did this happen? Why did this happen to us? We didn't even get the chance to meet our baby."
Mike Fisher's voice collapsed into sobs as he struggled to finish the sentence. His hands shook. His eyes never lifted from the floor. The words felt too heavy to carry, yet they were all he had left.
"The child didn't even have the chance to be born before this terrible thing happened," he continued, choking back tears. "Why did that drunk driver do this to my wife?"
Just hours earlier, Mike Fisher had been preparing for the life he and his wife had dreamed about for years. Now, he was sitting in a hospital hallway, surrounded by silence, trying to understand how everything could be taken away in a single, senseless moment.
A Normal Night That Turned Into a Nightmare
According to police reports, the crash occurred shortly after 9:30 p.m. on a quiet stretch of road just outside the city. Mike's wife, Emily Fisher, was 32 years old and seven months pregnant with their first child. The couple had been returning home from a routine prenatal appointment — one of the many small milestones they had been cherishing during the pregnancy.
"She was glowing," Mike said softly. "She always glowed after those appointments. She loved hearing the heartbeat. She loved talking about names, about the nursery, about what kind of parents we'd be."
Emily was in the passenger seat when a pickup truck traveling at high speed crossed the center line and slammed head-on into their car. Investigators later confirmed that the driver of the truck was heavily intoxicated, with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit.
The impact was catastrophic.
Emergency responders arrived within minutes, but for Emily and the unborn child, it was already too late.
A Life Full of Plans, Gone in Seconds
Friends and family describe Emily Fisher as warm, gentle, and endlessly kind. She worked as an elementary school teacher and had always dreamed of becoming a mother.
"She used to say her classroom was practice for motherhood," her sister recalled. "She was patient, loving, and protective. She was ready."
Mike and Emily had been together for nearly a decade. They met in college, built their careers slowly, and waited until they felt truly ready to start a family.
"This baby was wanted," Mike said through tears. "Every second. Every heartbeat."
In their home, the nursery was already half finished. Tiny clothes hung neatly in the closet. A crib stood assembled but empty. On the dresser sat a framed ultrasound photo — the last image Mike would ever have of the child he never got to meet.
"I Should Have Been Able to Protect Them"
Survivors of drunk-driving crashes often carry an invisible burden: guilt. Mike is no exception.
"I keep replaying it in my head," he said. "What if we had left five minutes later? What if I had taken a different road? What if I had seen him coming?"
Doctors say Mike's physical injuries will heal, but the emotional wounds may never fully close.
"I was driving," he whispered. "I should have been able to protect them."
Counselors emphasize that such thoughts are a natural part of grief, especially when loss is sudden and violent. But logic offers little comfort when a father has lost both his wife and his unborn child in one instant.
The Arrest That Came Too Late
The driver responsible for the crash was arrested at the scene and now faces multiple felony charges, including vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence. Authorities confirmed that he had been drinking at a nearby bar for several hours before getting behind the wheel.
For Mike, the arrest brings no relief.
"Jail won't bring them back," he said. "Nothing will."
What hurts most, he explains, is the preventability of it all.
"This wasn't a disease. This wasn't an accident you couldn't stop," Mike said, his voice hardening for the first time. "This was a choice."
A choice to drink.
A choice to drive.
A choice that destroyed an entire family.
The Unseen Victims of Drunk Driving
Statistics often reduce tragedies like this to numbers — percentages, charts, annual reports. But behind every statistic is a family like Mike's, shattered without warning.
Every year, thousands of unborn children are lost due to impaired driving. Their names are never written on birth certificates. Their faces are never photographed. Their lives are remembered only by the parents who were waiting for them.
"These babies don't get a voice," said a local victims' advocate. "So we have to speak for them."
Emily and her unborn child now join a growing list of lives lost to drunk driving — a list that continues to grow despite decades of warnings, laws, and campaigns.
"Please, Don't Let This Be for Nothing"
In the days following the crash, friends have organized vigils, leaving flowers and stuffed animals near the site of the accident. Messages written in chalk cover the pavement: Drive Sober. Lives Depend on It.
Mike attended one vigil briefly but left early.
"It hurts too much," he admitted.
Still, he has one message he wants people to hear — not out of anger, but out of desperate hope.
"If you're thinking about driving after drinking," he said, looking directly into the camera, "please don't. Call someone. Sleep it off. Walk. Do anything else."
His voice cracked again.
"Because somewhere out there is a family like mine, just trying to get home. And they don't deserve to disappear because of your decision."
A Future That Will Never Be
Mike Fisher now faces a future he never imagined. One without the woman he loved. One without the child he was supposed to teach how to ride a bike, how to throw a ball, how to say "I love you."
The house is too quiet. The nursery door stays closed.
"I don't know who I am anymore," Mike admitted. "I was a husband. I was about to be a father."
Now, he is something else — a survivor, carrying grief heavy enough for three hearts.
As the legal process moves forward, Mike says justice feels like an abstract concept. What remains real is the absence — the empty passenger seat, the unfinished nursery, the future that ended before it could begin.
"I just keep thinking," he whispered, tears streaming down his face, "our baby never even got to take a breath."
And with that, the question returns — unanswered, unbearable, echoing in the silence left behind:
Why did this happen to us?