ST PAUL, Minn. — It was Feb. 27, 2018, and truck driver Sam Hicks was leaving his second to the last stop in the east metro and headed down Highway 36 toward his home in Wisconsin. His phone alerted him to a text, and Hicks looked down to check out a listing for a home his then-girlfriend had found.
Eight seconds.
That's how long Hicks' eyes were looking down instead of at the road in front of him. Eight seconds... that changed a handful of lives forever.
"I play that moment in my head multiple times a day," Hicks reflects in a new video released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS). "There wasn't anything I could do... I was out of control."
Hicks didn't see the car waiting at the red light... a car with professor, husband and father Rob Bursick behind the wheel. The semi hit the vehicle at 63 miles per hour, finally coming to a stop on top of the tangled wreckage. The 54-year-old Bursick did not survive.
"We shouldn't need a law to tell us to pay attention while driving," Minnesota State Patrol Col. Matt Langer said at the time.
More than two years later, the impact of Hicks' decision to drive while distracted echoes in the lives of everyone involved in that moment. Hicks himself spoke to DPS while behind bars, serving the sentence for killing Rob Bursick.
Rob's wife Jessica is raising their young son Ian by herself, a child she says her husband doted on. She said Rob was the "life of the party," a guy who wasn't afraid to laugh at his own jokes and made everyone feel welcome. He had already raised two kids, but was loving being a dad the second time around.
"He's missed out on so much," Jessica reflects in the new video. "He's missed out on his daughter's wedding, he's missed out on the birth of his grandson... and Ian has missed out on not growing up and sharing a lot of things with Rob you hope every kid and father hope to do."
"He misses his dad a lot," she says, her voice breaking.
Rob's daughter Jaci recalls how her uncle walked her down the aisle because her father wasn't there. She says he would have been the best grandpa to her son, a child Rob never got the chance to meet. "We have the memories, but we'll never get to see our dad again... and it's all because of the eight seconds Sam decided to look at his phone."
Sam Hicks decided to speak with DPS about that fateful day so he could send Minnesota motorists a message: Driving distracted, even for eight seconds, can have life-changing consequences.
"When I think about Mr. Bursick, I think about his family, I think about his being a dad, I think about him being a professor... I think about his kids. You definitely don't want to be the person who takes somebody's life," Hicks said. "It's heartbreaking to know that happened, to know I caused it."
"I wish I could take it all back."
The State Patrol reminds drivers that hands-free cell phone use is the law in Minnesota. That means drivers can no longer hold their phone in their hand. Accessing or posting on social media, streaming videos, checking that box score or Googling information on a device while driving are all still against the law in Minnesota, even in hands-free mode.
To see the entire 10-minute video, visit the DPS/State Patrol YouTube channel.
