Every Fifteen Minutes

...someone is killed in an alcohol-related car crash.

Today this point was driven home to the students at my school with the Every 15 Minutes program. Every 15 Minutes is designed to inform and educate students about the dangers of drinking and driving, using simulation and shock tactics.

It started at 9:03, shortly after school began. One of our vice principals came over the intercom to announce the death of a teacher at our school. After pulling over with car trouble, he was hit by a drunk driver and killed instantly. All juniors and seniors were then invited to the football stadium. It took a while to get nearly 1,500 kids in past a tarp-covered accident scene and seated. Once they were settled in, the tarp was removed, and the very real-seeming simulation began.

At first there was the shock of seeing two crashed cars, a two-door coupe and a minvan, one with the severed arm of a young man hanging out, the other with a young teenage girl sprawled face-down across the hood of the car, grotesquely sticking out of a shattered windshield. Blood dripped down the sides of the cars.

Then there was a whimper, and a scared girl crying, saying, "Is everyone okay?" She was in the back seat of the minivan with another girl, and they were both able to climb out of the wreckage and call 911.

We could hear the 911 call, and the subsequent dispatch call from 911 to the local police. Pretty soon several police officers rode into our stadium and got out to assess the scene. A fire truck came in, sirens blaring, followed by two ambulances.

It became apparent to the rescue workers that the two girls in the back of the minivan were okay. The driver was in some distress and could not feel her legs. The girl riding shotgun was gently removed from the wreckage, laid on the ground, and covered with a blanket.

"She didn't make it," was the somber comment of one rescue worker.

In the coupe, the firemen went to work with the Jaws of Life to remove the top of the car, in order to extricate the young man in the passenger seat--and his severed arm. The driver of this car was okay, aside from the suspicion that she had been drinking.

It was determined that the young man needed to be air lifted to a local hospital, so a Life Flight helicopter came to the DVHS stadium and landed on the football field. The driver of the minivan was loaded into an ambulance while the distraught mother of the dead girl was brought to the scene to identify her daughter's body.

We then watched the coroner load the young woman into a body bag to be taken to the morgue, while the officers gave a field sobriety test to the driver of the coupe. The two girls from the back of the minivan were gently herded to a police car to be taken to a safer place where their parents could come pick them up.

It was determined that the 18-year-old girl driving the coupe was, indeed, under the influence, and she was arrested on "at least one count" of gross vehicular manslaughter.

Pretty heavy stuff. Fifteen hundred people in those bleachers, and you could hear a pin drop.

Of course, it was all a simulation. The students involved in the scene were neither drunk, dead, or armless. The grieving mother knew, deep down, that her daughter was only playing a role. The rescue workers knew this was not a real crash scene, as did all of us in the bleachers. But it felt real. There was that part of all of us that wanted to cry watching a bright young woman being loaded into a coroner's van and driven away.

The students' involvement doesn't end there. The dead girl was actually taken to a morgue and processed. The other two injured were actually taken to hospitals, and the driver was taken to a police station and "booked."

Throughout the rest of the day, there were announcements every half hour that more students had been killed in alcohol-related car accidents. These students became the Living Dead. While still at school, they were isolated from everyone else, not allowed to speak to anyone. The only memory of them in class was a single red rose and a picture of the victim.

Parents of the students involved in the program were visited by police at work or home to be informed of the "death" of their child. They know in advance that their student is involved in this, but apparently it is still extremelly upsetting.

Tomorrow there will be a funeral. The parents are spending tonight at a retreat, writing letters to their children. The students are at a separate retreat--not allowed to go home--writing letters to their parents that begin, "Dear Mom and Dad, Every 15 minutes, someone is killed in an alcohol-related car accident. Today, I died, and I never got to tell you..."

Intense? Yes. And yet, perhaps the single most effective way to get through to teenagers that drinking and driving is dangerous. If it saves one life, that life is worth it.

Every 15 minutes...it just reminds us all to hold our loved ones close, and to make smart choices.

**Note** A huge shout-out to the Antioch Police, Fire, EMS, Life Flight and all local businesses who supported this incredible program. It's not cheap, it's a lot of work, and it's evidence that we are all working together to make our community a safer place.