Mock crash shows Notre Dame students real danger of drinking

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A student died every 15 minutes Thursday at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Each student death represented a national statistic that a person dies every 15 minutes in an alcohol-related crash. As part of the educational experience, a docudrama called "Every 15 Minutes," the students deemed dead were not allowed to talk, text using their cell phone, attend class or go home after school.

Each student's obituary was posted in the school's common area.

"They try to make it as real as possible," said Sharee Galnore, coordinator for the Cape Girardeau Safe Communities Program, an initiative working to promote traffic safety. "By the end of the day, it starts becoming very real for them."

Another student was determined dead at the scene of a mock car crash, where all Notre Dame students and staff watched emergency workers place a fellow student in a hearse and three others in an ambulance.

They began crowding the lawn behind the high school around 10:30 a.m., when they first saw a severely damaged white van carrying four of their classmates. The fifth student in the wreck was playing dead less than 15 feet from the van as though she had been ejected from the vehicle.

The driver of the van, playing the intoxicated student, was the uninjured person in the accident.

According to the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety, of the 7,784 alcohol-related crashes in 2008, 32 percent of the fatalities and 42 percent of the injuries occurred not to the drunken driver but to some other person involved in the crash.

Throughout the U.S., in 2006, 31 percent of drivers aged 15 to 20 who were killed in a car accident were drinking, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

First responders work with students at Notre Dame Regional High School during a presentation of "Every 15 Minutes," a mock drunk-driving accident Thursday for their classmates. (Fred Lynch)

"It really scared me whenever I was first walking up on the accident. It looks so real," said Notre Dame student Taylor Bowen.

Two students, playing witnesses to the mock accident, walked up to the scene and called 911.

The Cape Girardeau Fire Department, ambulance personnel and police officers responded to the mock car scene immediately and parents of the victim were consoled by representatives of Ford and Sons Funeral Home.

"It was really frightening," said freshman Kenrick Niedbalski. "I would never want my mom and dad to go through that."

"I just hope it doesn't happen," Niedbalski said. "I hope my friends are better than that."

Cape Girardeau police officer Al Spencer, who narrated the docudrama, said in order to walk at graduation or attend prom students at Notre Dame are required to go to an educational session on the dangers of underage drinking. Their parents are also required to attend a session.

"You have prom and graduation coming up; I don't want to see this. I don't approve of it," Spencer told the students.

Brother David Migliorino, Notre Dame's principal, said he takes the issue of underage drinking seriously.

"We don't condone it, and we ask parents to support us," Brother David said.

ehevern@semissourian.com

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