Survivor of deadly, suspected DUI crash recounts tragedy

A young man who survived a suspected-DUI crash near Enumclaw, that injured three others and claimed the life of his best friend a week ago, spoke to KIRO 7 News about the crash and how it has already changed his life.

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“I'm done drinking. I'm done partying,” Aaron Hewes said while wearing a neck brace and lying on a blowup mattress in his living room.

It's a heartbreaking lesson, Hewes wants others to hear.

“I lost my best friend over it,” he said.

The 20-year-old can hardly move. His recovery will take months after breaking several bones including his neck, leg and arm, in a horrific crash in Greenwater.

The driver, Bryson Stubbles, pleaded not guilty in court to vehicular homicide and assault charges. Prosecutors say the 18-year-old was impaired behind the wheel.

Asked if he thought Stubbles was sober, Hewes said, “He made it seem like he was, yeah.”

At about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, Hewes remembers he and three friends left a bonfire with Stubbles.

The car belonged to one of the passengers. Hewes said that passenger asked Stubbles to drive if he was “OK to drive.”

"Ten minutes into the drive I was half asleep and I wake up to the other passengers in the car screaming the driver's name: Bryson!  Bryson! Bryson! and I wake up and all I see is a tree line and just like that it was black again," Hewes said, snapping his fingers.

When Hewes came to, he remembers he was dangling out of the car.

“I was hanging out by my right leg,” he said. “I tried to get myself up and that's when I realized that both the bones in my arm had been snapped.”

Hewes screamed for help.

Someone from the party stopped and the backseat passengers were helped out.

Hewes called for his best friend, 18-year-old Malek Frees, thinking he had been ejected.

He then saw him inside the mangled car. Dead.

“I don't want it to be real but it is,” he said, thinking of that moment.

Hewes' says this is his second crash in Greenwater with similar circumstances.

“I think it's God telling me that I have a purpose here and that he wanted to prove that to me,” he said.

Hewes hopes others listen: "You may think you're OK but you're not and I'm sure he thought he was OK but he wasn't."

The consequences, he now knows, hurt.

"[I] want my brother to rest easy and I know he's in heaven," Hewes said of Frees.

Hewes says he and the other people in the crash managed to attend the memorial service for Frees Saturday.

Hundreds of people showed up.

Stubbles’ friends tell KIRO 7 News, he is a well-liked football player who is a good kid but made a mistake.

He is awaiting his next court date.

Cox Media Group