“I want people to stop drinking and driving. I wish I could just wave a wand and everyone would just stop, because I wish everyone’s mentality was like mine. That if you drink, you just don’t get behind the wheel,” Banks said.
The crash occurred on Dec. 20, just before 12:30 a.m. on 3 Notch Road in St. Mary’s County.
The sheriff said the man behind the wheel hit Tahtinen from behind. Both cars caught fire, and the other driver was able to get out. Tahtinen did not survive.
“I’m just proud to just say that I was a part of somebody so pure, because he was truly an angel, man, he really was,” Derrick Banks, Tahtinen s stepfather, said at the vigil.