SAFETY LESSON
Mock drill helps students learn about impact of drunken driving
TROY, N.Y. » With less than a week until students from Tamarac High School attend their junior and senior proms, on Friday morning students were able to get a mock experience of a drunken driving mass casualty.
The mock drill is intended to provide students a first-hand account of the potentially devastating effects caused by impaired driving. Student actors from the school portrayed the roles of driver and pas- sengers in the accident.
Student actors were placed in vehicles in the school’s parking lot that were supposed to have been in a head- on collision, with the student actors having fake blood covering their bodies.
As other students from the school looked on, firstresponders from several agencies including Eagle Mills Fire Department, Center Brunswick Fire Department, Mountain View Fire Department along with the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police
and Mohawk Ambulance Service, all came rushing into the school parking lot with their sirens on to respond to the head- on collision accident.
First-responders used hydraulic rescue tools to get the student actors out of the damaged vehicles, as parent actors looked on trying to get closer to the scene with police officers holding them back.
One student actor, who was portrayed as the drunk driver, was taken away in handcuffs by the state police, while another student actor was put on a stretcher and brought into an ambulance as one other student actor was portrayed to be deceased and was placed partially in a body bag and wheeled to a coroners van.
Teen drivers are three times more likely than more experienced drivers to be involved a fatal crash, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, and drinking any alcohol or taking drugs greatly increases this risk for teens.
School administrators believe that the annual mock drill is a good experience for the students.
“We’ve always tried to raise awareness for any kind of issues whether it’s teen driving, whether it’s distracted driving or driving while impaired, we want to show them what the real life consequences can be,” said Rich Pogue, Principal at Tamarac Secondary School.
Student organizers from the school’s Students Against Destructive Decisions group agreed that each year the experience is always impactful on them and other students.
“We do this because we want to protect our students and keep them safe and show them how there are dangers in the world and that you have to be careful,” said junior Sara Kuiken, the treasurer of the SADD group at the high school. “I look around and see student’s faces, how they are crying and they’re seeing their friends and it makes it so much more real.”
“We hope they realize that this is a real life situation, they are making real life decisions and that’s one of things that we try to push home,” added Pogue.
Students from the high school will attend their prom Friday, May 11 at the Crooked Lake House.