Mum uses son's deadly drink-driving crash as warning to teens

The mum of a teenager who was drink driving when he became involved in a horrific deadly crash is making it her mission to ensure her son's mistakes aren't repeated.

Jordan Hayes-McGuinness, 18, had been celebrating his first work Christmas party with colleagues in Brisbane in 2012.

His mum Melissa had been messaging him that night, and he told her he was having fun and having a few beers.

He was due to return home to the Gold Coast the next morning - but it would be a trip he would never complete.

Just before midnight, Jordan was travelling south on the M1 when he crashed at speed into a broken-down car on the side of the road.

"As I rounded those last set of stairs and I saw those two policemen through the glass door, my heart absolutely sank, my knees gave way," Melissa told A Current Affair.

"I knew something was drastically, drastically wrong."

Not only had Jordan been killed, but so had four of the five teenagers sitting in the car he had crashed into.

Two of those teens left behind an orphaned, 15-month-old child.

"I almost felt like I didn't have the right to grieve," Melissa said.

"My son was responsible for the death of four other kids, who am I to sit here to sit and grieve? Those kids were innocent kids."

Police revealed the P-plater had alcohol and marijuana in his system, and was speeding.

"The people that Jordan ran into that night and killed, they had an accident," Jordan's dad Peter said.

"Jordan in fact made a choice."

But years on, Melissa is trying to turn her grief, and Jordan's tragic decision, into something that helps other kids.

She now spends one day a week speaking in schools around Australia.

"I don't seek to lecture the kids, or shock the kids, but I seek to take them on a journey of what it looks like when you make a wrong choice or a bad choice in your life," she said.

She recently spoke to 400 students at Southport State High School on the Gold Coast.

Students told A Current Affair afterwards of their reactions.

"She showed a lot of strength being able to get up there and talk about the legacy her son has left behind," one said.

Melissa is now hoping she can expand the program to deliver her talk to every high school in Australia.

"I know that I can't right Jordan's wrongs at all, but this is probably the best thing that I can do," she said.

"I know that Jordan would be enormously proud that his death is not going to be in vain."