WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas — The mother of a Tarrant County teen killed in her bedroom by an alleged drunk driver spoke to WFAA for the first time since suing the suspect and a Lake Worth bar that her attorneys claim overserved him before the crash.
Amy Kirkland is an English teacher at Saginaw High School. The halls in that building feel very different now than they ever did.
Kirkland's daughter Katey, 18, was about to begin her senior year there last August but was killed tragically before her final year ever started.
"She'll never have an adult life," Amy Kirkland said. "Being a mom to her, all that was taken away, too."
Kirkland and Katey were watching a movie on Aug. 7, 2022, in their White Settlement home when she said the teen got bored and went to her room.
Kevin Kirkland, Amy's husband and a geometry teacher at Boswell High School, was in another room toward the front of the house.
"I'm pretty sure he was playing video games in the middle room," Amy Kirkland said.
"Then all I heard was a loud bang. It sounded like an explosion. All the doors from those bedrooms just exploded out into the hallway. I didn't know exactly what happened, but I knew it was bad," the mother explained.
Bad is an understatement.
A truck plowed through the front of the home, killing Katey and seriously injuring her father.
Donald Gruber, 64, was arrested and has since been indicted on intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault charges.
Per White Settlement police, Gruber already has three previous DWI convictions.
"I just remember screaming," Amy Kirkland said. "You just can't believe it. Who thinks something like this is going to happen?"
Kevin Kirkland was taken to the hospital and was in a coma for three months after suffering a traumatic brain injury.
He had a stroke in his right cerebellum and needed a craniotomy. Some weeks ago, a permanent shunt was placed in his head to relieve pressure from fluid in his brain.
The teacher can walk with the assistance of a walker but still needs a tracheotomy and gastrointestinal tube.
Kirkland said her husband can do mathematics right now and tic-tac-toe, which are good signs of improvement.
But the couple still has a long road of recovery to manage.
"It's hard. I almost feel like a widow that still has my husband," Kirkland said. "It's just so different because I don't really have him. There are a lot of unknowns still in my future.
Those unknowns and Kirkland's pain were all preventable, per the 46-year-old.
A new lawsuit filed against Gruber and the bar he was at before the fatal crash alleges the authorship of Kirkland's pain is unchecked indulgence.
The suit alleges that before Gruber and another woman got behind the wheel, they were overserved alcohol at The Point on Lake Worth.
The suit claims Gruber was well-known at the restaurant and was known to drink until he was intoxicated.
"The Point failed to have properly trained employees, and/or encouraged its employees to ignore the law, in serving Gruber and Cox, which directly led to Katey's death," the lawsuit reads.
The woman and owners of the bar, WILDCAT CANYON, LLC, WOODS INLET, LLC F/K/A WOODS INLET CORP., are listed as defendants in the suit.
An attorney representing those entities didn't respond to WFAA's request for comment, but a response has already been filed in court to the suit by that attorney denying negligence and all allegations.
"Just how irresponsible it was to allow yourself to get drunk enough to do something like that," Kirkland said. "The people who served him? It's not good enough to let him leave. They should definitely be held accountable for what they've done. They're responsible for this."
Kirkland is represented by Lyons & Simmons, LLP, which represents people connected to catastrophic injuries or disasters.