By FireRescue1 Staff
FLINT, Mich. — A 24-year-old woman was sentenced to 40 to 180 months in prison for causing a crash that killed a firefighter last year.
MLive.com reported that Clio firefighter Mike Wager died July 30, 2016. Wager, an eight-year veteran of the Clio Area Fire Department, was off-duty when the crash occurred.
Kristin Mae Bowers pleaded no contest in March to charges of operating while intoxicated causing death and failing to stop at the scene of an accident, according to the report. Friends, family and colleagues crowded the courtroom to hear the judge’s decision.
“I became a widow in the most horrible way,” Wager’s wife, Amy, said. “I am standing here today to be my husband’s advocate, because he can’t talk for himself. It’s not vengeance why I’m standing here right now – it’s justice.”
Judge Geoffrey L. Neithercut recommended Bowers participate in an alcohol treatment program while in prison.
“Kristin Bowers is not a malevolent woman who was looking to kill people,” Judge Neithercut said. “But Kristin Bowers killed someone; she killed one of the good ones. And the fact of the sentence is you have to be punished.”
Wager’s wife told Bowers that she hopes “she starts making the right choices.”
“No matter what situation you are in, you have a choice,” she said. “Stand up, and be decent, or continue on the path that you’re on.”