3/12/2009
Simi school event dramatizes drunken-driving horror 

Simi Valley Police Officer Robert Longdon stepped into a classroom at Royal High School on Wednesday morning and informed the students that one of their classmates had been killed in a drunken driving accident.

The same announcement was made over the school’s public address system, while elsewhere in Simi Valley, Valerie Ross was being told by a police chaplain that her daughter was dead.

But Kelly Ross, 16, actually was alive and well in the school assembly hall, along with 23 other students who had been chosen to “die” as part of the Every 15 Minutes campaign against drinking and driving.

“I feel good because I am raising awareness,” Kelly Ross said. “It’s good for people to realize that life goes away quick.”

Throughout the day Wednesday, students, staff, parents, local law enforcement and emergency responders role-played the effects and consequences of drinking and driving.

Today, students will gather to watch video coverage of Wednesday’s events, which included a visit to the morgue and a teen on trial at the city courthouse for driving under the influence.

It’s a brutal exercise in “what if,” but for Harriet Hunsaker, a member of Royal High’s PTA who organized the two-day event, it’s a lesson better served cold.

“We want this to be a wake-up call and to be kind of a shock to them,” she said.

Four students were chosen by school counselors to take part in a simulated car crash every 15 minutes that would leave one teen “dead,” two “injured” and another “under arrest” for driving under the influence.

“I actually go through the windshield, so I’m dead on scene,” said Nicole Houghton, 16, who was made up to look as if she had a bone protruding from her right arm and a bloody wound on the right side of her head. “It’s going to be intense.”

Houghton’s best friend, Katie Bannon, 16, played the driver of the car hit by the drunken driver and had a fake piece of glass sticking out of her forehead.

“We’ve been friends since preschool and it was hard when we were putting the makeup on, because even though we knew it wasn’t real, I couldn’t look at her,” Houghton said. “It’s definitely realistic.”

The 1300 block of Arcane Street, adjacent to the high school’s playing fields, was blocked off by law enforcement Wednesday morning as police officers, firefighters and paramedics responded to the mock two-car collision.

Ventura County Fire Department Capt. Charlie Sullenbarger orchestrated the arrival of an engine and ladder truck and the rescue of teens trapped in the crashed cars.

“Drinking and driving is a reality that our society faces every day,” Sullenbarger said.

“It’s a whole life-changing event from seeing it, participating in it — the aftereffects of someone dying who’s young and has the whole world just in front of them. It’s a life-altering event that people never forget.”

About 1,200 students watched from bleachers as the exercise unfolded, and although there were some who sniggered and giggled, the majority watched silently, focused on the faux tragedy.

When a hearse from Reardon Simi Valley Funeral Home arrived to collect Houghton, covered with a body bag, the audience could have heard a pin drop.

That silence, organizers hoped, indicated the message was beginning to hit home.

“I hope they take it to heart and not think it’s a joke just because it’s make-believe,” Longdon said. “When we’re going to accidents and dealing with DUI drivers, all the time they don’t learn a lesson until after it’s too late.”

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/mar/12/no-headline---nxxec15minutes12/