In Loving Memory: Alumna Aimee Hoff comemorated by loved ones following drunk driving accident
Walking into Teresa Hoff’s house is like looking into a lost memory. Boxes of photographs are stacked in the corners of the hallways. A girl looks out across the house from every wall, moments of her life immortalized inside countless picture frames with permanent smiles. The girl is Aimee Hoff, Teresa’s only daughter and 2009 NPHS alumna. Aimee died as a passenger in a drunk driving accident this past September. Teresa wants to ensure that as many teenagers as possible hear Aimee’s story to remind them that one mistake is enough to ruin a life, and that the impact is larger than they realize.
“When you hear on TV, ‘Don’t drink and drive’, it’s abstract,” Teresa says. “It’s not a real person. It’s not someone you know.” The anti-drinking and driving campaign Every 15 Minutes has the same philosophy. As a singer and an active participant in theater, Aimee was one of the few students chosen to be a fake victim during her time in high school during her junior year.
“For Every 15 Minutes, they choose kids who they think will have a wide impact overall to participate,” Teresa explains.
Aimee was also a strong advocate against drinking and driving; after getting a DUI on her 21st birthday celebration, Teresa refused to drive her or let her drive for year and a half, leaving Aimee to find her own forms of transportation. “For the next year and a half she walked everywhere, and I mean everywhere … She had holes in her shoes,” Teresa laughs, “I wanted to drive home the idea that driving is a privilege, not a right.” As a result of her charge, Aimee was required to pay thousands of dollars and attend mandated classes for weeks. After this experience, “she was a strong advocate against drinking and driving, and as far as we know, she never did it again,” Teresa says.
The night of the accident, Aimee had received a text while babysitting from friend saying that he was drunk. She responded and assured him that she would come pick him up after she finished babysitting. Aimee called her mom before leaving that night, explaining that she needed to help out a friend. Upon meeting her friend at the party, she ended up getting in a car with three others, including the friend she was assisting. All three were intoxicated, including the driver.
Only five minutes later, Aimee and her friend were dead. Teresa reflects on Aimee’s decision, saying “She got in the car. No one made her get in the car … but she thought for a second it’ll be okay. I’ll watch out for him. That’s the way she was. There’s been many many times she’s stopped friends, called cabs for friends, but she still got in.”
In the months immediately after Aimee’s death, Teresa received letters and gifts from all over the world. “You think you know your kids, but I didn’t know what an impact in the world she was making until she died. I got letters from Norway, from a girl that was an exchange student that had felt alone and my daughter had talked to. I got a letter from a soldier in Afghanistan who said she had written him regularly and it had helped him. I got just so many things from so many people that I had no idea.”
In an effort to publicize the dangers of driving under the influence, Teresa originally ordered a small stock of cards emblazoned with Aimee’s picture and the dangers of drinking and driving. When Principal Athol Wong saw the cards, she contacted Teresa for more to pass out at a senior meeting. Each card features Aimee on the front with a space on the back to write down the number of a friend or a cab.
“One single exception, one single decision can cost you your life. Look at how adamant she was over and over. The cab was the last thing on her debit card, and one second you think ‘well this time will be okay’,” Teresa says. “This time might be your last time. You have to walk away from it every time.”
