After a demonstration last week showing students the dangers of driving while intoxicated, it’s doubtful that Sumrall High School seniors Zane Berry, Peyton King and Dylan Lowe – or any of the other 11th- and 12th-graders at the school – will ever get behind the wheel after being nothing less than stone-cold sober.
The three students each played parts in a graphic, realistic reenactment of an automobile accident in which a drunk driver slammed into another vehicle, causing one fatality and several injuries. The demonstration – which was coordinated by Sumrall Police Department, Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Southeast Mississippi Air Ambulance District and fire departments around Lamar County – was held at the Sumrall High School football field in advance of junior and senior prom.
The reenactment featured police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and even SEMAAD’s Rescue 7 helicopter arriving on scene to administer to victims of the wreck.
“We have the ability to bring an (emergency room) to y’all, but we don’t have the ability to keep y’all from doing something crazy on prom night,” Rescue 7 flight paramedic Michael Groce told the students. “Everybody’s done it – almost 30 years ago, I was in the same boat y’all are in, and we didn’t have this, where people would come out to explain to us and tell us what’s going on.
“So we want to bring it out here to y’all, so you understand what is actually going on when you see a scene like this on the side of the highway – with the Jaws of Life going on with firemen cutting people out of the car, the firemen trying to keep people away from the scene. So on prom night, maybe y’all will think about this before you think about going to have a drink, because it’s not worth it in the end.”
Michael McDonald, flight nurse for Rescue 7, said the only difference between what happened at the reenactment and what happens in an actual fatal accident is that the students portraying the victims got to stand up and walk away.
“When it really happens, those people under the white sheets don’t get to walk away, and the people we put in this helicopter are usually never the same again,” he said. “When we come, it’s the worst of the absolute worst.
“So keep in mind that what you saw today, that’s how it functions and that’s how it works. Everything you saw today was real-life, except for the fact that everybody walked away, and everybody crawled up from under a white sheet.”
King, who played the role of a deceased passenger, said the event puts things into perspective for people who may not fully understand the dangers of impaired driving.
“People hear about this all the time, but they never see it happen,” she said. “(This demonstration) is important because everybody hears that so-and-so died in a car crash, but they never see what it’s like, and I feel like this can kind of scare these kids straight.”
Berry said with prom season coming up, he saw the demonstration as an opportunity to drive home what can happen if students make the wrong decisions on prom night.
“We don’t think about that a lot – we think about how much fun we’re about to have and just the whole night in general,” he said. “Just to see it in reality, I think it can really hit you hard.”
The reenactment was personal for Dwight Owens, a motivational speaker and author who was confined to a wheelchair after being hit by a drunk driver in 2005.
“Because of that drunk driver’s selfishness and negligence, I’m now in this wheelchair and paralyzed for the rest of my life,” said Owens, who was representing the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services. “So I’m very passionate about that. I’ve lost people in my life due to their choice to drink and drive, so to me, drinking and driving is a selfish choice because it affects not only you; it affects everybody on the highway that day.
“I just want to make sure (the students) return on Monday the same way they left school. So my job as a motivational speaker is to inspire them, encourage them and empower them, so they look at me as an example, as a victim, and say ‘I don’t want that for myself.’”
