This is the time of year when schools are holding their proms, and students are out on the roads more than they have been in past months. Aside from the many new teens getting their drivers’ licenses, the days are longer, and the weather is nicer, so, in addition to the increase in the number of teens on the roads, we are seeing more drunk driving accidents, and many of these accidents result in serious injury or even death.
According to a recent news feature from CBS Local Boston, local police and firefighters held a drunk driving accident demonstration at Burlington High School. This drunk driving crash demonstration took place at the school three days prior to prom night.
The demonstration began inside the school. Actors were selected from among the students to act on a scenario in which a group of teens decided to drink alcohol and then get behind the wheel of a car. This presentation was performed earlier and recorded on video to be shown on the day of the demonstration.
In this video, the students drink to the point of intoxication and get behind the wheel of their vehicle, only to quickly get into a drunk driving crash in the greater Boston area. Then, the video contains audio of a typical 911 call following a serious drunk driving crash. At this point, the students watching are told to go outside, and they see the mock crash set up with two destroyed vehicles arranged as if they had just been in a head-on collision. There is a body lying in the roadway, and there are more teens in the car acting as if they were drunk. The students can hear sirens as rescue workers rush to the scene of this staged accident.
When first responders arrive on the scene, they try to provide medical attention to the injured person lying in the street and perform CPR, but there is nothing they can do, and they radio to a local level-one trauma center, so a doctor can call a time of death. Once the victim has pronounced dead, a sheet is placed over the body.
This message to show the consequences of drunk driving are so important that they spared no expense in their demonstration and had a medevac helicopter land at the scene to take one of the other students via med flight to a trauma center in Boston.
While you might expect that some of the students would find this whole demonstration amusing, and surely some of them did, there were students who broke out in tears despite knowing full well that it was not a real drunk driving accident. If there is this much emotion from a mock accident, one can hardly imagine what these students would go through if one of their friends was really hurt in a drunk driving crash.
While this will clearly not get everyone who witnessed the demonstration to not drive drunk or ride with a drunk driver, even if it gets through to a very small percentage of viewers, it will be worth it. Even getting through to a single person could prevent a fatal drunk driving accident in the future, and it would be hard to a put a price tag on that.
If you or someone you love has been injured a Boston drunk driving accident, call for a free and confidential appointment at (617) 777-7777.
Additional Resources:
Mock Crash Reminds Burlington Students Of Drunk Driving Dangers, May 11, 2016, CBS Boston, By News Desk
More Blog Entries:
Massachusetts DUI Charges for Principal of the Year, April 11, 2016, Boston Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer Blog