We had the Mock Crash today – and they specified that it was a “crash” and not an “accident” since the mock crasher was mock drunk. They pretty much followed the script that was in use last year, but it is a good script and the important bit is seeing the interaction of the people trying to get the injured people out of the cars. The thing that struck me most this time around is the time it takes for the emergency folks to get there. And once they get there, if the car doors are jammed, the time it takes to get people out of the car. We’re a small town and yet it was still 10 minutes before the emergency people showed up from the 911 call. Our emergency squad and fire department are run by volunteers. And I figure these volunteers were informed before hand about the mock crash, so were in the vicinity as it was. In a real crash, you don’t have that luxury and the wait can be 15 to 20 minutes for anyone to show.

Care Flight came in from Miami Valley Hospital as well. It was probably half an hour before they got there since folks on the scene wouldn’t know until they were there that they’d even need Care Flight. Sure enough, the hearse came to this mock crash, too. This time it was Ron’s daughter, Suzy, who arrived, but that’s still a creepy thought. (The Jacksons are some of the neatest people in town – and they’re very upbeat, too, considering their profession.) They used the “jaws of life” to get the two people out of the second car. And the valedictorian was the one who was thrown out of the windshield and was dead before the emergency crews arrived. She lives across the street from me and I was trying to picture her family if something like that really had happened. Bleh – not an image I want to dwell on.

One girl sitting on the risers near me was crying throughout most of the mock crash. Some of it is pretty intense stuff. The only real time when it didn’t look real was when some of the firemen were joking with Robin, the “deceased” girl on the hood of the car. They were doing this before they loaded her on the stretcher and then into the hearse.

The weather for this event was perfect. Well, until about the time we spotted the Care Flight ‘copter. Then a huge and steady wind blew in and slammed into our backs. It was about 10°F colder than the still air, so for the second half of the outside portion, we suffered this continual cold blast. I’m sure the folks in the ‘copter weren’t happy about the sudden shift in wind.

The last 10 minutes of the outdoor presentation had the parents of a boy who was killed in a drunk driving crash 8 years ago talk to us. They travel with the sherrif’s department on these mock crashes and bring their son’s wrecked car for everyone to see. They were also there last year, but it was still a touching story.

We got back inside and folks were awfully quiet. Our guest speaker for the inside segment is a paraplegic who got that way by breaking his neck in a single car drunk driving accident. He’d been the football star, wrestling star, baseball star of his high school, but from his freshman year on, he drunk and did drugs pretty regularly. I thought his message was very good – I think he understood the mentality of the kids in the audience well and didn’t mince words. And the gym was probably the quietest I’d ever heard. That’s pretty impressive, actually, as our students are VERY well behaved at assemblies.

So, tomorrow night, the juniors and seniors will go off to prom and after prom. And I’m hoping that some of the kids think twice about including alcohol or drugs during that experience. For the two classes that I actually got to see today, I wished them the best of luck and said “And if you’re going to have sex, don’t forget to use a condom!” That’s one message they didn’t impart to the kids, so I figured I should. 😉 “Remember, babies are a sexually transmitted disease!” Yes, I’ve got something of a reputation at the school. Apparently the seniors are keeping a log of my more humorous statements. I shudder to think what they have written. 🙂