Seven members of a local family, dead because of a drunk driver:

Before being booked in the fatal wreck, Gerald was arrested at least three times for drunken driving in Assumption, East Feliciana and Livingston parishes.

Lynn McCain, of St. Gabriel, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that she and her husband were driving in front of the Gaines’ vehicle.

McCain, 56, said she and her husband were driving home after visiting with her ill mother-in-law in Clinton.

Gerald was driving in the wrong lane and almost crashed head-on into McCain’s SUV, she said.

McCain said she swerved to the right to avoid being hit by Gerald then Gerald smashed into the Gaines family’s car.

McCain, who said she and her husband heard what sounded like an explosion just after the miss, said the Gaines family had no time to avoid the crash.

McCain said her first instinct was to get out of her car and run over to the Gaines car to help. She ran over, but it was too late.

“The car was crushed and mangled,” McCain said. “I saw children inside. There were no cries, no moans and no one asking for help. There was nothing. No sound, just dead silence.”

Three times this SOB was arrested for drunk driving! Three times. Yet he was still on the road. And now an entire family is dead, except for the father, who wasn’t in the car, and now has to figure out how to get on with his life.