It's a Wednesday night and Ryan Nielson, a 50-year-old father of two and a local LDS Church leader, is cruising the bar and club scene in Salt Lake City, hoping to make a pickup.
He stops at Club Naked, Amarillo Club and Shaggy's, but it's still too early for any takers. Driving along State Street, he answers his cell phone. A woman's voice. She's at the local biker bar, Barbary Coast, and needs a ride.
Blonde, young and girl-next-door pretty, the woman is one of Nielson's regulars, although she doesn't look the part. After work, she had a few drinks, she explains. She's in no shape to drive. "This is great," she says from the back seat. "I have friends who have numerous, numerous DUIs. It just freaks me out." Nielson drives to her home high on the East Bench and returns to the bar scene, looking for other riders.
Score one more for Nielson. He has kept another drunken driver off the road. And who knows, maybe he saved a life.
Night after long night, Nielson is a one-man, designated driver program — a printer by day, a hero of the roads by night. For two months, this has been his life: Go to work at a printing company, then return home in the evening and nap a couple of hours before the phone starts ringing and keeps ringing from about 9 p.m. until 3:30 a.m., but sometimes as late as 5:30 a.m. Sleeping in sweat pants, socks and a shirt, all he has to do is put on his shoes and he's out the door.
On weekdays, he comes home to catnap between calls, but on weekends, well, why bother? He parks near bars, like the taxis, or cruises the streets. He's supposed to show up at Litho-Flexo Graphics, his employer, at 8 a.m., but he rarely makes it on time.
"I'm always the last person to get to work, but my employer has been very supportive," he says. "They put up with me going into work late with red eyes. Even though they run a business, they've been very understanding."
On this night, Nielson decides to quit early because business is slow, but just as he is slipping into bed at 1:30, he gets a call from a man at Gino's. "He was desperate," says Nielson. "He said he doesn't dare drive." Nielson gets dressed and drives the man from Salt Lake City to Magna. By the time he goes to bed it is nearly 3.
"I'm glad he called, because he was going to drive," says Nielson, who has given nearly 150 rides since he began the designated-driver program in September.
Nielson makes no money doing this, but he does lose it. He has spent $5,000 out of his own pocket, most of it going to rent a van, because insurance companies won't let him use his own vehicle for such a service.
Why does he do this? The answer is in the picture.
Inside the van, there is a photo of a handsome, clean-cut young man smiling for the camera. Inevitably, customers take the bait. "Who's that?" they ask. It's his son, Nielson explains — his son who's in prison because last January he ran over a young woman after a night of drinking at a Park City bar. Matt will celebrate his 25th birthday soon, in prison.
"One of the questions I get is 'Why do you do this?' " says Nielson. "I show them the picture of my son and tell them because of this person. He's in prison. I get people thinking about drinking and driving."
One mistake can be a stone dropping into a pond, sending out ripples that rock worlds for years — one too many drinks, one accident, one woman's life destroyed and nearly ended, one son in prison in the prime of life, one father out on the road late at night with promises to keep.
Her name is Ana Paula Bussmann, a 22-year-old student from Brazil. On Jan. 25, she was walking alongside a road when she was struck by Matt's car. He was arrested and jailed. It was his second DUI arrest. After being released on bail the next day, he called his father.
"Dad, I've got some bad news I was arrested for DUI; I hit someone," he said. "She's not supposed to live."
Nielson and his wife Victoria were in their car when the call came. Twenty minutes later they were in Ana's hospital room just as she returned from surgery. The nurses said she wasn't going to live, that she was brain dead. They just wanted her to hold on until family could arrive, but her family was in Brazil. Ana's face was barely visible through all the bandages. Ryan Nielson held her hand.
"I found myself alone with her and said a prayer and asked that she would live and recover," he recalls.
A few nights later, as he was driving home, he began to sob and had to pull off the road. "I prayed like I've never prayed before," he says. "I made a promise that if Ana would be allowed to live I would do something to help. I said I don't know what I can do, but I'll think of something. I didn't want her to die. I didn't want murder on my son's shoulders."
In the coming weeks, when it seemed more possible that Ana would survive, he began to mull over the possibilities and decided to start a designated-driver program. Many cities have them, but not Salt Lake City.
He started "Designated Driver 4 U." He created a Web site and printed 1,500 cards with his name and phone number on them, offering the first ride free. For that matter, all rides are free, but he usually receives a tip, which he depends on to off-set costs. He passes out the cards in bars and slips them under windshield wipers in the parking lot. Perfect strangers call his home in the middle of the night asking for a ride.
"It's amazing to me," says Victoria. "He is so dedicated. He just wants to help. It's just wearing him out, though."
He is driven partly by guilt. He was a heavy drinker for most of his life. He introduced his first wife, who grew up a strict Mormon and non-drinker, to alcohol. "I brought alcohol into our home, and I created a monster," he says. "My wife and son became heavy drinkers."
About 10 years ago, Nielson gave up drinking and returned to his religious roots (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). He and his wife divorced, partly because of the drinking issue.
A week before the accident, Nielson says he told his first wife that he was concerned about Matt's drinking. "I was watching my son become an alcoholic at 25," says Nielson. "He was drinking more regularly. He was always around alcohol. It was his lifestyle."
After his son is released from prison, Nielson wants him to complete his community service requirements by helping him with his designated driver program and lecturing against DUI.
The question is, can Nielson hold on to the program? He is running out of cash. He has received $1,500 in donations, including $1,000 from General Distributors (a Budweiser distributor) and $500 from No Name Saloon. He originally set aside $6,000 of his own money for the program, and he's already spent most of it to cover the costs of gas, licensing, the Web site, van rental and insurance.
He has received promises for donations from a number of bars and clubs, but most have failed to deliver. Under the Dram Shop Statute, bars are liable if one of their customers gets drunk at their establishment and has an accident. Nielson reasons bars and insurance companies should be willing to help fund his program. Utah Beer Wholesalers Association has invited Nielson to present his case in an upcoming meeting.
"If I fall on my face, it will be worth it," he says. "I tried."
"He's trying real hard to do a good thing," says Linda Badovinatz, owner of the Amarillo Club. But she also worries that she is sending the wrong message if she hands a club patron one of Nielson's cards. "I don't want that to mean that now you can drink what you want because you'll have a ride home," she says. "(By law) I still can't over-serve someone. But anything that will help prevent (DUIs) is great. His heart is in the right place."
Nielson has tried to get government funding, but state legislators told him they believe his program promotes alcohol. Using the same logic, Nielson says the state must be doing the same thing since it is the sole retailer of liquor.
"Look, all I'm trying to do is get the vehicle (of a drunken driver) off the road," says Nielson, who notes that most of his passengers have DUI convictions. "Let's save lives. Their answer is to arrest everyone, which can't be done. A lot of cities have designated-driver programs of some kind. My goal is to get a designated-driver program for Salt Lake City. If you eliminate the vehicle, you eliminate the crime and save lives and millions of dollars. Utah is profiting from the sale of alcohol with taxes and doesn't put it back into programs like this, except for education. My ultimate goal is to create an 800 number people could call."
In an ideal scenario, Nielson could use funding to hire other drivers and purchase a vehicle.
"He needs help," says Victoria. "He needs someone else to help him drive. I feel bad when the phone rings. I want to help, but I can't use my car because of the liability problems. It's amazing to me how many call."
Nielson, an LDS Church branch president, is becoming a familiar figure on the club scene. He walked into the Amarillo Club one night and the bar patrons called out his name and began applauding.
"This is not something I like to do," he says. "It's something I feel I have to do."
Postscript: Weeks after the accident, Nielson took Matt to visit Ana and meet her parents, Joao and Maria Helena, in the hospital the day before she would be flown to Brazil and he would be taken to jail. When they arrived at the hospital, Matt remained in the car with his sister while his father went inside.
"Where is Matthew?" Joao asked.
"He's in the parking lot, working up the courage to come in," Nielson replied.
After asking Nielson to point out the car, Joao walked to the parking lot, opened the car door and called to Matt. Joao embraced him, and for a long time they held onto one another.
"Matt, I forgive you," Joao said. "I don't want you to go to jail. Just make me one promise: That you'll never drink again."
"I promise."
Matt went inside to see Ana. The last time he had seen her, he was holding her in the road and sobbing, "Please, God, don't let her die!" This time her eyes were open and she was squeezing his hand.
"I can do time (jail) so much easier now because she's going to live," he told his father.
Says Victoria, "Matt has a great attitude. He's one of the nicest guys you'll meet, but he was drinking and driving, and that's against the law. It's a huge thing to be on your conscience the rest of your life. He's so thankful she's alive and progressing."
According to Darren Nelson, an attorney for the Bussmann family who is part of a civil action that is based on the Dram Shop Statute, Ana "has really had a miraculous recovery. She's still physically debilitated, but she's eating on her own and she talks. She doesn't initiate conversation a lot, but she talks. She's totally aware of what happened to her. She remembers. They thought she was going to die within hours. She was a vegetable. Even when she went to Brazil, they thought she was going there to die. But based on what we're hearing, anything can happen. Her parents believe she is going to have a full recovery."
As for Matt, he recently wrote his father a letter from his Park City jail:
Dear Dad;
I'm sorry that I'm a slacker when it comes to letters but please know that I think of you every day and miss you. I also can't wait to go cruisin' with you some time. It's something I definitely look forward to.
I hope everything is going well with the D.D. (designated driver) company, and I'm excited to help in any way. My main concern is for Ana, and I pray that she is getting better. I wish that I could have updates as much as possible, but their family is so far away. Please let me know anything you hear. It helps me out.
So one month from today I have my parole hearing. I just hope everything goes well, and they can see I'm a good person who made a stupid mistake. I know that it was a huge mistake, and I should have learned after the first DUI, but I can't go back in time or I would fix this matter. I need to make something positive out of this and I know it's possible.
Please write me and let me know what's going on . I love you so much, Dad, and can't wait to kick your butt in handball.
Love, your son, Matt.
E-mail: drob@desnews.com