Josiah Martin’s parents woke him before sunrise on Saturday to deliver grim news: His best friend of 12 years, Phillip Briner, had been in a serious car crash and they weren’t sure if he would survive.
“I just kept asking myself if it was a dream,” said Martin, 20, of DeMotte, Ind. “I just kept hoping that he would be okay, that he was just in bad shape.”
Martin later got a call from Briner’s mother, who, too distraught to say the words, handed the phone to another son who simply said, “He’s gone.”
Briner, 21, was killed early Saturday morning after a drunk driver crashed into him on the Dan Ryan Expressway near 95th Street, authorities said. Both trucks were heading south around 1:30 a.m. when the other driver crossed from the far-right to the far-left lane of the 5-lane highway and smashed into Briner. A witness who saw the crash in the rearview mirror told police that both trucks hit the far left wall, crossed traffic again and hit the right wall before coming to rest.
Briner, of Crown Point, Ind., was transported to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with severe injuries and was pronounced dead 30 minutes later, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Michael Briner of south suburban University Park, said that his younger brother was heading home from working his shift at The Peninsula Chicago hotel in downtown when the crash occurred. He normally worked nights at the hotel but worked until midnight as a server for a banquet, Briner said.
“We are all very angry,” said Briner, 26. “I knew that they had (the driver) in custody, which means he walked away from the crash and my brother didn’t. We want justice to be served.”
“I can’t believe this, that someone would be so selfish that they have to get somewhere, that they can’t say, maybe I shouldn’t be drinking,” Martin added. “It’s not worth it. Now (the driver’s) going to jail and I lost a best friend and a brother.”
Michael Briner said that Phillip was the fifth of six siblings and described him as imaginative, caring and fun-loving. He attended Hammond Baptist High School in Schererville, Ind., graduating in 2010. Before working at the hotel, Briner said his brother took classes to become a massage therapist.
Briner and Martin met in church as pre-teens when Martin’s family was looking for a new pastor and Briner’s father came to the church seeking a preacher position.
The Briners eventually moved down the street from the Martins and the two rambunctious boys didn’t take long to start stirring up trouble, Martin said. So frequent were their antics that when the Briners first called with the tragic news, Martin said his mother first thought, “What did Jo and Phillip do now?”
“We were goofballs,” he said, chuckling. “We didn’t cause anyone harm but we were always doing something silly. My mother has three sons but they had no idea what hell was to come when Phillip moved in.”
To wit: Both boys, obsessed with Spider-Man, often tried climbing up the side of the Martin home to mimic the comic-book superhero, Martin said. Just as often, Briner would tumble off the roof into a pile of leaves and get up to try again. Another time, the two lit a gas can on fire. On another occasion, the two doused each other with Axe body spray, emptying several cans of the aerosol deodorant into the home.
“You couldn’t get it out of the house,” Martin said. “It was like a haze. My sister is still angry about it to this day.”
But it was his wit that endeared him to nearly everyone he met, Michael Briner said.
“He always tried to find the humor in things, which is what he would want us to do right now,” Briner said. “He wouldn’t want us to be mourning like we are.”
Martin, offering a glimpse into his friend’s levity, said that Briner always wanted his last Facebook message to be a conversation he imagined having upon arriving in heaven. After St. Peter would ask for his name, Briner would say: “My name is Phillip Scott Briner and I’m here to party!”
On Saturday, Martin fulfilled his friend’s wish and posted the conversation to his profile.
“It’s like my brother said: ‘God must have needed a comedian in heaven,” Martin said.
pnickeas@tribune.com, cdrhodes@tribune.com
Twitter: @rhodes_dawn, @peternickeas
21-year-old dies in rollover on Dan Ryan Expressway
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21-year-old dies in rollover on Dan Ryan Expressway
