A BITTERN mother has spoken of her continuing torment following the death of her son in a car crash almost two years ago. Her story comes after a horror weekend on Victoria's roads in which six people died.
"The worst pain you can ever have is losing your child," said Wendy Haggerty.
"I lost my father when I was eight, I have lost a baby by a miscarriage, lost siblings, my brother-in-law; none of it is anything like losing a child."
Mrs Haggerty said she was speaking out in an effort to communicate the emotional wreckage left behind after the death of her son Scott Haggerty, who died when his car ran off Old Moorooduc Road in Tuerong on August 9, 2008.
"Kids just don't understand that one mistake can be so devastating," she said.
It was a Saturday night in winter when Mrs Haggerty and her husband, Scott's father Dave, received a phone call from one of their son's friends who said Scott had been seen driving erratically near the scene of an accident.
"I rang Mornington police and they said there had been an crash in Tuerong.
"I said to Dave, 'It's him, it's Scott'. I just knew." Mr and Mrs Haggerty immediately drove to the crash scene where police at a roadblock told them their son was driving alone when his car ran off the road and crashed into a tree.
"Everything was just a blur after that," Mrs Haggerty said.
The house was full of people as the family prepared for the funeral – "Scott's gig" as his mother calls it – and hundreds attended the wake at Crib Point Football Club, where he played junior footy.
At the time of his death, Scott was captain of Hastings Football Club reserves, so his death threw a heavy pall over both clubs.
And then began the heavy drag of life after a child's death.
Mrs Haggerty was constantly ill and could not leave the house.
She could not return to work at Ritchies supermarket in Hastings, where she had been on the checkout and knew everyone.
"At first I couldn't even go into Hastings; for weeks and weeks. And then when I did I needed someone to come with me," she said.
There were visits to therapists to learn how to deal with people and how to navigate changed relationships with friends and family.
"Dave and I deal with it very differently; I talk more," she said.
A neighbour who had lost her son in a car crash 10 years previously became a confidant because she understood the journey and knew the lonely paths it could take.
Mrs Haggerty and her daughters Danielle, 21, and Kylie 22, kept a pile of pamphlets in their handbags – a grief 'wish list' from the coroner's office – to give to people to explain how they were feeling when it was too hard to articulate their grief and its effects.
She admits to occasional feelings of intense anger towards her son.
She knows he had been drinking and was speeding at the time of the crash.
"I've called him a lot of names," she said. "I want to say to him, 'Why did you do something so stupid when your life was just so great'."
Having suffered from depression, Scott was gaining the ascendancy over his 'black dog'. He was working as an electrician and the week of his death had applied for an overseas posting.
Danielle Haggerty drives a red, late-model car with a sticker on the back that states, 'I lost my brother to speeding'.
"People ask me if I want to drag them and I say, 'Er, have you read my sticker? No!"'
The family has produced a range of stickers, including 'We lost a mate to speeding', and 'I lost a nephew to speeding'.
"We just thought the other stickers didn't really hit the message home," said Mrs Haggerty, referring to the 'Touched by the Road Toll' stickers seen on cars.
"We haven't just been touched by the road toll, we've lost our son, our brother, our mate."
Parts of the Haggerty home in Crib Point have become a shrine to Scott, with framed photos and football jumpers adorning the walls and tabletops.
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