Last week, in a grisly scene, six students from Victoria East High School in Victoria, Texas were involved in a fatal, two-vehicle wreck. One student died at the scene, while another was airlifted to a local hospital. Two others became trapped in an overturned vehicle and another student was bleeding profusely as officers questioned him. Immediately after the accident, one of the student drivers failed a sobriety test and was arrested for involuntary manslaughter.
Thankfully, all of this was part of a simulation, and not a real accident. East Victoria High School students were called outside to an assembly, to witness what might possibly happen whenever an intoxicated person decides to get behind the wheel.
The scenario was created through the Shattered Dreams program, which is a program designed to raise awareness of drinking and driving among teenagers and others by creating realistic scenarios. In this case, the Victoria School District worked with the Victoria Police and Fire Department, the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and several local businesses all worked together to make the scene look realistic. The result was a bloody accident scene, featuring students looking despondent, first responders and a helicopter descending onto the scene and drowning out all other sounds.
It wasn’t all attempted realism; there was also a bit of theater, as an actor portraying the Grim Reaper led a group of students and a teacher dressed in black t-shirts emblazoned with the acronym “D.E.A.D.,” for Drinking (and Driving) Ends All Dreams and black makeup made its way through the accident scene, to portray the “living dead.
The main point they were trying to make was that someone dies in a drunk driving or distracted driving accident every 15 minutes, that such an accident can happen to them and that every one of them can be avoided. To bring the point home, none of the students went home that night, to signify the impact drunk driving accidents have in real life. The parents of the student who was arrested participated fully in the simulation, and the student even spent the night in “jail.”
The simulation continued the next day with “memorial service” for the dead, at which “the living dead” read letters addressed to their parents, and several people who have been convicted of DUI and police officers spoke. Also, a line of coffins, all closed with no one inside, were on display.
Simulations and other activities designed to make people more aware of the danger of drinking and driving certainly can’t hurt. Too many people continue to get behind the wheel after having too much to drink. In 2012, nationally 10,322 people died in accidents in which someone was driving drunk, according to NHTSA statistics; in Texas alone that year, just under 1,300 were killed in such accidents.
The Texas Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer at Hill Law Firm has represented too many victims of drunk driving accidents against those who have chosen to drive drunk or who encouraged others to do so. If you or a loved one has been injured or died in a drunk driving accident, call Hill Law Firm today.