MONROE, CT — Any Masuk High School students planning to drink alcohol with their friends on Prom Night may think twice after hearing a sobering story from Pete Romprey during a pre-prom assembly in their school auditorium Wednesday morning.
Not long after her 21st birthday, Romprey’s daughter Rebecca, a kidney transplant recipient, died walking to a Broadway show on March 11, 2017. It all stemmed from an incident in New Haven five months earlier, when a drunk driver slammed into Pete Romprey’s Toyota Tundra as he drove his family home from a pumpkin festival.
“Rebecca died from injuries sustained in that drunk driving crash that went undetected at the hospital, that nobody found, that went off like a grenade on a New York City sidewalk and she died in Times Square all by herself … at 21-years-old,” Romprey said.
“Drunk driving is not an accident,” he said. “You didn’t have an accident. It’s deliberate. It’s a criminal act and you will go to jail for it. You will ruin your life for it.”
The drunk driver was a Guilford police officer, whose blood alcohol level was four times the legal limit. He was convicted of assault with a motor vehicle and sentenced to two years in prison, serving 11 months.
Romprey, who is a volunteer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, was the featured speaker for the assembly in the lead up to the Prom at The Waterview this Friday night. The event will be followed by the Post Prom Party at Masuk.
Tammy Julian, president of the Masuk Parent Teacher Council, which organizes the Post Prom Party, invited all juniors and seniors to enjoy the night of music, raffles, free food and fun activities in a safe environment.
Wednesday morning’s speakers also included Superintendent Joseph Kobza, Police Chief Keith White, Principal Steve Swensen, Assistant Principal Ian Lowell, Nicole Wichowski, a program director for MADD, and Susan Clark, faculty advisor for Students Against Drunk Driving.
“Everybody’s here because they care about each and every one of you very deeply,” Kobza said from the podium. “We all want you to have the night of your life Friday at The Waterview and then back here at the Post Prom.”
“Prom is one of those nights we hope you will remember for the rest of your lives for all the right reasons,” he said, “but we know statistically it’s also one of the most dangerous nights for teenagers.”
Kobza urged students to avoid making bad decisions like driving under the influence, getting in the car with someone who may be impaired, texting and driving or some other kind of distracted driving, which can have life and death implications.
The superintendent reminded everyone to “think twice and act once.”
Monroe crashes
White reminded students of passenger restrictions and curfews for teenage drivers. He also shared 2024 statistics for motor vehicle crashes in the town of Monroe — 419 accidents on town roads and another 83 in parking lots.
“As you can see, we have a lot of accidents in town,” White said. “A lot of them are from distracted driving.”
In Connecticut, he said drivers under age 18 are prohibited from using any cellphone, even hands free, while driving. Even a minor car accident caused by distracted driving could lead to a lawsuit, according to White.
Wichowski shared MADD’s goals of ending drinking and driving, helping to fight drugged driving, supporting victims of these violent crimes, and preventing underage drinking.
“We estimate that we saved over 400,000 lives by reducing drunk driving deaths by more than 50 percent,” she said.
However, she said drunk driving deaths have been on the rise since COVID, going from about 10,000 a year in the U.S. to 13,000 to 14,000. “That doesn’t include drugs,” Wichowski said.
Despite it sometimes seeming like “everyone is doing it,” Wichowski said only three-out-of-every-10 teens drinks alcohol and only two-in-10 vape or use cannabis.
“When you choose not to drink and not to vape and use drugs, you’re actually in the majority,” she said.
Beyond teaching students academics, Clark said she and her colleagues share the hope they are also preparing them to use critical thinking skills outside the classroom.
“Remember the importance of making sound decisions,” she said. “When we choose unwisely, we don’t just affect ourselves, we put so many others at risk.”
“Parents’ worst fear is outliving their kids,” Swensen said. “You also have to think about how your family will be impacted, how the community will be impacted. It’s not just a decision you make for yourself, it’s a decision you make for your community as well.”
Of Pete Romprey, Swensen said, “his family, his community, has to live without his daughter Rebecca because of a choice someone else made — and that’s probably something that makes it worse.”
Against all odds
Romprey shared photos of his late daughter, Rebecca throughout his presentation. His first memory is how she fought for her life in neonatal intensive care for nine weeks and needed a kidney transplant by the time she was three-years-old.
When doctors said they needed a donor, Romprey said, “I’ll do it.”
“I was the first person tested and I was a dead-on match for my daughter,” Romprey said, adding the odds of that were similar to winning the lottery.
He showed a photo of Rebecca as a little girl, looking up with a big smile on her face. “This is the greatest picture,” Romprey said of how every parent wants to see their child healthy.
“She was absolutely amazing,” he said of the young woman his daughter went on to become. “She loved Broadway. She loved Disney. She just was a lover of life, a singer of songs.”
Other photos were of Rebecca in her red prom gown, posing for a photo with her sister, and smiling with friends at her 21st birthday party.
That day, the Rompreys took over the upper deck of Nataz Restaurant in North Branford and invited doctors, nurses and all of Rebecca’s friends to the celebration.
“We were absolutely ecstatic that this kid made it to 21-years-old when she was supposed to be dead at three-days-old,” Romprey said. “She wasn’t supposed to survive. They told us to go home and plan a funeral for this kid and she made it to her 21st birthday.”
In one of the last photos, Rebecca is wearing a gown, arms outstretched, while basking in the sunshine. Romprey said one of her girlfriends took the picture after prom.
“This is my daughter. She was a free spirit,” Romprey said. “She was reaching up to the sky. She loved the sun. It’s a prime example of how this kid was. She just loved life. Loved it. She knew she had a second shot at it and she took every day to enjoy it.”
Romprey said the only reason why his daughter’s life ended as tragically as it had, may have been so her story could prevent tragedies for others.
Whenever Masuk students finds themselves in a situation of deciding whether or not to drive while intoxicated, or to accept a ride with someone else who is, Romprey asks that they think of Rebecca.
Because she was “a Broadway rat” who loved Broadway shows, Romprey said his family played Disney music and made tickets for Rebecca’s funeral, along with a Playbill program.
“I tried to hire drag queens to pass them out, because Rebecca loved burlesque,” Romprey said with a smile. “My wife said, ‘absolutely not. We’re not having drag queens at our daughter’s funeral.’ But if I could have, I would have. It would have been Cher impersonators or drag queens. The kid absolutely loved them — and I certainly would have done it if I had been given permission.”
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