On the morning of Thursday, April 12, 2012, students at Thomas Stone High School received a first-hand lesson in drunk and distracted driving. This started with a re-enactment of a fatal drunk driving accident in the school parking lot with students as the victims in this collision. As junior and senior students came out of the school to the parking lot to see two cars full of their fellow students in a head-on collision, you could hear victims from the cars screaming for help while other patients were either unconscious or dead. As the students settled into their seats in surrounding bleachers, the 911 call was dispatched over the PA system for the reported serious collision in the school parking lot followed by school staff coming out to the scene and following the schools emergency plan by appropriate personnel assisting the patients. A short time later, sirens could be heard in the distance as emergency response crews were beginning to approach. By this time the once giggling and goofing off turned into a complete silence over the students as the reality of the situation was starting to settle in. As emergency crews arrived on scene, they went to work stabilizing the vehicles and assessing the patients as they removed one of the dead patients and set them aside. As fire crews worked to cut the trapped students from the vehicles, EMS worked to take care of bloodied patients. Once the patients were extricated, EMS transported the patients, with one of them being transported to meet a Maryland State Trooper Helicopter for a flight to a trauma center.
This is all a part of the Every 15 Minutes program sponsored by the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department to include Fire 3, EMS 3, and station 12. This program is designed to drive home the reality of a teenager dying every 15 minutes from drunk and/or distracted driving.
As a part of the program, the Grim Reaper arrived in classrooms every 15 minutes throughout the day to remove a student to simulate losing classmates from these crashes. Once removed, the students were moulaged to look dead and were not aloud to talk to anyone for the remainder of the day. While the students were at school, police and EMS crews went to pre-selected parent’s houses to inform them of the death of their child in the morning collision. Even though the parents were aware that this was all a part of the program, there was an obvious emotional impact and somberness over both the parents and the informing parties.
At the end of the day, the “walking dead” taken by the Grim Reaper throughout the day were all taken by bus to the Charles County Court House for a trial of the drunk driver from the simulated crash that morning where after hearing from both sides, the judge gave the driver the maximum sentence.
Following the trial, these same students were taken to Lions Camp Merrick in Nanjemoy for an evening of no communication with the outside world to include confiscation
