The crowded University hall fell deathly silent as the white-clothed man slowly trudged towards the podium.

Escorted by three armed prison guards and restricted by the metal links on his wrists and ankles, the sheriff invited him to the stage.

“I killed two innocent people,” said 25-year old Chris Sandy. “I couldn’t believe it, I mean really, they’re dead … I mean, they’re dead.”

Sandy spoke to a crowd of nearly 200 people, two days before many University students will be taking to the roads for Spring Break.

On April 11, 2000, Sandy, who had been drinking, was driving west on a country road outside of Atlanta when a car stopped in front of him and he decided to pass it.

Traveling at 70 mph in a 45 mph zone, Sandy said he barely saw the car up ahead, which was making a left turn into a residential driveway.

“A gold flash shot in front of my face,” he said. “I hit them in the passenger side door cutting the car in half, literally cutting it in half — the back half was dragged 100 feet down the road.”

With a pale, sweaty face and heavy breath amid brief pauses, Sandy discussed how he brought death to an elderly couple one night while driving home drunk from a party.

The woman in the car died instantly and the man, Sandy said, “he later died in the Lifeflight helicopter next to me.”

“This is someone’s grandparents, they’re in their 70s,” he said. “I couldn’t believe what I’d done, I hated myself.”

Sandy was sentenced to 13 years of jail time in June 2000, 90 percent of which is mandated by state law, said Chad Foster, who organized the lecture with the Department of Corrections and the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.

Athens-Clarke County Sheriff Ira Edwards said Athens is “a place full of alcohol” and added Sandy’s testimony speaks volumes.

“He’s been there and done that,” Edwards said. “Seeing him in shackles and chains — it’s a stronger message.”

Edwards said he hoped all the students present at the talk learn much from Sandy’s experience.

“They should not fall into the peer pressure mode,” he said. “They should not make choices that cost them their life.”

ACC Chief Deputy Gene Mays said students should have a designated driver when they go out at night, because alcohol slows reaction time and blurs the brain’s reasoning.

Nicholle Constantanopoulos, a junior from Lilburn, said Sandy definitely got his message across to students.

“I thought it was very powerful,” she said.

Allan Kinzly, a junior from Peachtree City, said after hearing Sandy, he learned he needs to be safe and responsible with his friends over Spring Break.

“We should have fun, but not too much fun,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sandy will remain in jail for another eight years and eight months before he is eligible for parole.

In the two months between the accident and his conviction for vehicular homicide, Sandy said, he was restless and uneasy that the police were coming to arrest

him every time the doorbell or the phone rang.

“From the moment when I smelt the alcohol and I puked on myself, I was scared to death that I was going to go to jail,” he said.

Sandy said he now lives in a 12-by-7 foot room tailored with an inch thick mat next to a metal post bed. It also has a bathroom and toilet, he said.

“How could this happen to me?” Sandy said he wondered at the time of his conviction. “I can’t necessarily say I chose the best friends … they could have not let me drive. They could have taken the keys from my hands.”