Widow brings awareness to sleep apnea problem

A Texas widow has made it her mission to save lives by bringing awareness to truck drivers falling asleep at the wheel. A driver with sleep apnea killed Wanda Lindsay's husband in a crash two years ago, and now she wants the trucking industry to change.

Lindsay recalls the day in 2010 when an 18-wheeler hit her car in I-30 construction traffic.

"He was travelling 65 miles an hour with his cruise control engaged when he hit us. We later found out that he had been diagnosed with severe uncontrollable sleep apnea, yet allowed to drive that truck, and he killed my husband," says Lindsay.

Lindsay now honors her husband, John, who died two days after the crash by bringing awareness to the dangers of undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea in the trucking community. Sleep apnea is a medical condition where you stop breathing while you're sleeping.

Through the John Lindsay Foundation, she's lobbying for commercial truck driver sleep apnea legislation and regulation.

"If you have a mother that's strapping her child into a car seat, or if you're handing over your car keys to a teenager and they're getting out on those highways, it's dangerous. And, I just want to make sure that people understand how dangerous it is," says Lindsay.

Some companies already mandate drivers with sleep apnea use special machines to drive safely. Through a settlement, the Lindsay family received more than three-million dollars because the company admitted the driver's sleep apnea almost certainly killed John Lindsay.

Now, his widow just hopes to save lives.

"If we prevent one family from going through the devastation that my family has been through, that's what we're gonna do," she says.

Lindsay lives in Texas, and says she expects Texas state legislators to take up her cause during the 2013 session.