MILTON — Ricardo Cabral will enjoy two more weeks of freedom after being sentenced to five years in prison for the wrong-way drunk driving crash that killed a Hamilton bylaw officer.

On Wednesday, Justice David Harris postponed 36-year-old Cabral's sentence until Sept. 1 so that he can complete his electrician's certification exam — a special accommodation that stung for Ryan Powless's family as they watched his killer walk out of the courthouse.

"I'm tired of pretending I'm OK," his mother Luanne said as she embraced friends outside a Milton courthouse Wednesday.

Cabral pleaded guilty in April to criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Powless, 29, was killed in the early hours of May 16, 2015, when Cabral — driving drunk, the wrong way down the highway — smashed head-on into his car. It was around 3:30 a.m.

Powless — giving his friend Brianne Vassallo a ride home — was headed eastbound on Highway 403 near Waterdown Road.

Cabral's pickup truck was also in the eastbound lanes, but he was going west.

He had been travelling the wrong way since Highway 407. According to the agreed statement of facts in the case, Ministry of Transportation cameras first captured his truck on the 407 near Dundas Street, narrowly missing multiple cars as he plowed through to Highway 403.

There, he hit Powless's silver Nissan sedan head on.

Powless died at the scene. In the passenger seat, Vassallo — who does not recall the impact, just the spray of glass and a burning smell — suffered broken fingers, a broken clavicle, a compressed disc and two fractured ribs.

"I was very afraid that I was going to die in that car, but at the same time I didn't understand that Ryan already had. At the time, I didn't realize that I was the fortunate one," she wrote in a victim impact statement — one of 25 to be submitted in this case.

But today, Vassallo, 21, does not feel fortunate. She suffers from major depression and PTSD, has flashbacks to that "horrible burning smell" and is anxious even getting into a car.

"I experience terrible survivor's guilt every day because I lived and he didn't," she wrote in her statement to court in April.

"Ryan made such a big impact on his community always putting others first, why was he taken and not me? Ryan lost his life being kind and responsible by trying to ensure that I got home safe that night."

He was often the designated driver, his mother Luanne recalled — he was a "good kid."

He was proud of his new job as a bylaw officer with the City of Hamilton, she said, and didn't want to compromise his success by partying. Being the DD was his excuse to stay sober.

Terry and Luanne Powless recalled proudly the good deeds their son did on the job as a bylaw officer, including giving his personal electric blanket to a family whose heat had been turned off by their landlord.

The night before he died, he had sent his parents a selfie in his new police vest, which he'd just earned to enable him to ride along in cruisers on night shifts. He was ambitious, they say.

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"Imagine what he could've done in 10 years," Terry said, gazing off.

The grieving parents have been to every court appearance — as has Vassallo and her mother. Close to a dozen other relatives and friends were there in support Wednesday.

Jay Berberick, a friend and colleague of Powless at the city, said friends organized a golf tournament in Powless's honour this year, raising $7,200 for MADD Canada.

Cabral's blood alcohol level that night was 110 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood. The legal limit is 80 mg. Witnesses on the scene noted his eyes seemed red and glassy and that his speech was slurred.

In her victim impact statement, Vassallo also said she hoped Powless's case will teach people of the realities of drinking and driving: "My wish through all of this is that Ricardo has learned the heartbreak caused by driving while impaired and will never drink and drive again. I hope that he will become an advocate against this practice within his community."

Justice Harris noted in his sentencing decisions that Cabral was convicted of impaired driving and refusing a breath sample in 2001.

Cabral was initially charged with impaired driving causing death and causing bodily harm, dangerous driving causing death and causing bodily harm, driving with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, causing death and causing bodily harm, and possessing under 30 grams of marijuana.

The Crown was seeking five to six years in prison. The defence asked for two to three years.

While he was sentenced to five years for Powless's death, he was also sentenced to two years for Vassallo's bodily harm, to be served concurrently.

Cabral will also be barred from driving for eight years after his release.

He will be back in court Sept. 1 to be taken into custody.