Posted on Sat, May. 13, 2006

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‘I wanted to do something ... meaningful’

New trooper overcomes tragedy, grief

By DAWN HINSHAW

dhinshaw@thestate.com

Jacob Luquin dreads the first time he responds to a car accident that has killed a child.

But the young trooper, who graduated Friday as a new member of the S.C. Highway Patrol, hopes his presence might give an intimate comfort.

Last summer, a wreck claimed Luquin’s only children, Jadon, a baby boy, and Alexis, 2, whom he called Allie Bee.

He and his wife, Karen, spent all but weekends apart for the past four months while he completed his training in Columbia. Both are 27.

“It was not a time for them to be apart,” his mother, Barbara, said, her eyes red after the ceremony, “but they did good.”

On the evening of Aug. 21, Karen Luquin was making the trip home on I-20 after visiting her mother in Georgia.

She was halfway to Jacksonville, N.C.

The highway south of Bishopville was wet, she said, but it wasn’t raining.

She must have lost control of the car.

“And I saw the trees coming,” she said softly.

“Next thing I remember is someone saying, ‘Ma’am, we’ll get you out. We’ll get your children out.’”

The reassuring voice of that trooper, still a stranger to Luquin and his wife, encouraged them to move ahead with the plans they had made for Jacob to train as a trooper.

“We talked and said we can’t give up, just throw our hands up in the air,” he said.

On Friday, he was among 54 new patrol officers, one of just four recognized for special achievement. He won the academic award.

The class was one of the largest in a dozen years. It boosts the number of uniformed officers to 842, still a far cry from the 1,100 officers who patrolled South Carolina roads in 1994.

Among them was the first woman to graduate since 2000, bringing the total number of female troopers in S.C. to 27.

Luquin said the opportunity to help people — a philosophy that led him first to the Marines — is what attracted him to the patrol.

“I wanted to do something with my life that was meaningful,” he said.

When they married, Karen Luquin was in the Army. Now, she’s a pharmacist technician in their new hometown of Ridgeland.

She wears a locket inscribed “Forever in my heart” on a delicate silver chain around her neck. Inside are photos of Jadon and Alexis.

The couple plans to get involved in the patrol’s “Families of Highway Fatalities,” a volunteer program that encourages driver safety and supports those who have lost loved ones.

“The trooper who responded to the accident, he did his job and he took care of my family the best he could,” Jacob Luquin said.

Now it’s his job.

Reach Hinshaw at (803) 771-8641.