Photo courtesy WSPA-TV "I just want you to know there's not a day that goes by that I don't regret what I did. I'm truly sorry for your loss and the pain and suffering I caused." - JOHN BOTCHIE (prior to sentencing) SPARTANBURG - Vernon Dickens spent five weeks in a medically-induced coma and his hospital bills to date have reached $1.5 million.

Not only does the 68-year-old Cowpens man continue to bear the scars of tragedy, like the tube in his throat, a missing left eye and a partially paralyzed diaphragm that makes it hard to breathe, he still has at least three more surgeries ahead of him.

Far beyond his medical woes, however, Dickens lost something even more precious.

As he was being airlifted away from a violent wreck at Old Metal and Macedonia roads on April 10, 2007, he remembers seeing that none of the medical personnel seemed to be working on his wife of 48 years, Frances, who still was inside the twisted wreckage of their truck.

A 31-year-old man who was driving so drunk his blood alcohol content was at least four times the legal limit admitted his guilt Friday to blowing through a stop sign and striking Dickens' truck so hard the vehicle flipped multiple times.

Vernon & Frances Dickens Frances Dickens died at the scene and Vernon Dickens was left to live with many daily reminders.

Turning towards the dozen or so family members and friends of Vernon and Frances Dickens who had showed up for his plea hearing at the Spartanburg County Courthouse, John Botchie fought to maintain his composure.

"I just want you to know there's not a day that goes by that I don't regret what I did," he told them. "I'm truly sorry for your loss and the pain and suffering I caused."

He ended his remarks with the hope that, one day, the family could forgive him.

Minutes later, Botchie was sentenced by Circuit Judge Wyatt Saunders to 22 years of imprisonment on a charge of felony driving under the influence related to Frances Dickens' death.

He received a concurrent prison sentence on a similar charge related to Vernon Dickens' injuries.

The truck in which Vernon and Frances Dickens were riding when it was struck by John Botchie's vehicle April 10, 2007. Despite all he has gone through, Vernon Dickens later said he forgave the man responsible for all of his and his family's pain.

Not only was he satisfied with the punishment Judge Saunders gave Botchie, Dickens said hearing Botchie's apology offered him some closure.

"Sure (I will forgive)," Dickens replied to a question, "and I have right now."

He added, "If the Good Lord can forgive me for everything I've ever done, can't I do the same for somebody else?"

Dickens said he never will be able to forget what happened to him and his wife.

"I don't really want it to go away," he said. "I just want to get to the point it's bearable."

Vernon and Frances were married in 1961 and they have two daughters, Sabrina Dickens Mason and Dawn Moody, who both asked the court for justice Friday.

"On April 10, the lives of our entire family changed forever," Sabrina Mason said. "We lost a mother, a wife, grandmother, sister and friend."

Vernon and Frances had been driving to Cowpens Battleground that day to enjoy an outdoor walk.

Sisters Sabrina and Dawn described their mother as an active woman who enjoyed clogging, weekly trips to a senior aerobics class with a friend, attending car shows with her husband and Bible study.

"Nothing we do here is going to bring her back," Vernon Dickens had told the court. "But we can do what's right."

Judge Saunders said it was "incomprehensible" that Botchie was able to get behind the wheel with a blood alcohol level of .323 percent - the highest the judge had personally seen in a case. The state's legal limit is .08 percent.

"It was an accident waiting to happen when you started that truck," the judge told him. "You were pretty blind drunk."

Botchie's defense lawyers noted that Botchie had trouble with alcohol and substance abuse for many years and that he was bounced from relative to relative living in multiple states during his youth.

An example of the tolerance he had built up to alcohol, Attorney John White said hospital reports described Botchie as "alert and oriented" shortly after the April 2007 crash.

White also noted that due to the large number of crashes that had occurred at the same intersection where Frances Dickens was killed, the state Department of Transportation changed the road signs last year to better alert drivers.

Deputy Solicitor Barry Barnette, of the Seventh Circuit Solicitor's Office, noted in court this wasn't the first time Botchie had been in trouble with the law. Botchie previously was convicted of Pennsylvania's version of felony DUI - aggravated assault by vehicle while driving under the influence of alcohol - for a June 2000 drunk driving crash in that state.