Bob Pack

By the time Bob Pack rushed to the scene after a neighbor called with the awful news, it was too late for both his children. 

Bob Pack, who lost his two young children in an accident caused by an impaired driver who had been recklessly overprescribed opioids, was shocked to learn that the driver had received multiple prescriptions from six different doctors at the same hospital. Her doctors never checked her prescription history. To prevent other families from going through the same tragedy, Pack designed the electronic update to CURES that made California’s prescription database accessible in real time to doctors, and launched the effort to mandate physicians check the database before prescribing.

"I pass every day for the 13 years. I reflect on it every time I pass. I can't help but think of them," Bob Pack said as he stood near the spot on Camino Tessajara Road where his 10-year-old son Troy and seven-year-old daughter Alana were killed when a drug-impaired driver hit them on the sidewalk in October 2003. They had gone on a simple Sunday walk with their mother to the ice cream store.

Bob Pack was doing what dads do: watching football on a late Sunday afternoon. His kids, Troy, 10, and Alana, 7, were doing what kids do: short-circuiting their father’s best-laid plans.