Leslie Hines and the woman she nearly killed don't remember much about the night Hines drove drunk the wrong way on U.S. 285 near Eldorado in 2004 and crashed into two cars.

But they both recall the aftermath: Hines ended up in a cell at the Santa Fe County jail on suicide watch while her victim, Theresa Clemmer, did not wake up from a coma until a month later. When Clemmer awoke, a speech therapist was asking her to add two numbers. Both of her ankles were broken, her foot was crushed, she had a broken fibia, three broken ribs, a broken femur, a lacerated liver and a brain injury.

"I remember thinking that is such a ridiculous question to ask me," she recalled Wednesday night. "I'm in sales. I do numbers all day. But I couldn't answer the question."

Clemmer and Hines explained how the crash changed their lives at a victim Impact panel for drunken drivers Wednesday night. The panels are conducted by Impact DWI, a local nonprofit run by former physics professor Richard Roth and held at Santa Fe Community College. Every person convicted of DWI in Santa Fe County must attend the panels.

While the panels are often filled with tear-jerking stories of family members who have lost sons, daughters, sisters and brothers, DWI offenders see something extraordinary when Hines and Clemmer tell what happened to them: A woman hugging the drunken driver who put her in the hospital.

After serving jail time and getting sober, Hines became the darling of Impact DWI, sharing her story with many people in Santa Fe and becoming a model for how to turn one's life around after DWI. On Wednesday, she and Clemmer gave their last talk together— after three years, Hines is finally off probation and moving to California.

Starting slowly, Hines, a former gallery worker, told the 50 offenders in the room that she went to a party the night of Oct. 22, 2004. She drank a few glasses of wine as she got ready for the party and then several more while there. Hines had never been arrested for DWI before that night.

"The last thing I remember, I was sitting on a couch talking to a nice older couple, and the next thing I know, a doctor at St. Vincent is calling my name," she said.

The doctor told her she was driving the wrong way down the highway without her headlights on. Hines hit two cars, the first of which, Clemmer's Mazda Miata, she struck head-on.

"I'm hearing all this news, and I'm in total shock and devastation," she said. "I'd never been to jail before, had only seen what's on TV. I was in shock. It was like a horror movie."

At some point, she said, police told her she had talked about killing herself — something she doesn't remember.

After each woman was done speaking, Roth gave Hines a plaque and said she would be greatly missed at Impact.

Clemmer, who needed eight months of recovery before returning to work and still feels pain, gave Hines a bear hug and said she was proud of her.

"I have to say if Leslie and I had met in different circumstances, we probably would have been good friends," she said.

Contact Natalie Storey at 986-3026 or nstorey@sfnewmexican.com.