Staging Of Violent Crash Serves As Important Lesson For High Schoolers

Shattered glass, mangled metal, and clothes soaked with fake blood sat in the parking lot of Harry S. Truman High School in Bristol Township Thursday as students gathered around to see the consequences of poor decision making.

In coordination with emergency responders and local hospitals, the high school held its annual mock crash in the front parking lot in advance of prom weekend. The mock crash was set up to warn students of the risks of intoxicated and distracted driving.

Bristol Township police cars raced up to the mock crash scene that involved three vehicles. They put the student who acted as the intoxicated driver who caused the crash into a patrol car while medics and firefighters began work to treat the injured students.

In addition to students who suffered a number of real-looking “injuries,” several students “died” from injuries sustained during the mock crash.

Ambulances took the students to area hospitals, including the trauma unit at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown. At the ambulance bay, trauma teams and doctors assessed the student actors as if they were real patients. They treated those who survived and doctors told parents who participated the extent of their children’s injuries.

The student who acted as the intoxicated driver was hauled before a district judge for a mock arraignment and then transported to the Bucks County Correctional Facility to get a taste of what would happen to him.

To make the annual mock crash feel more real, the students who took part in the event handed over their cell phone and stayed in an area hotel overnight.

With the mock crash wreckage surrounding him, senior Habeeb Baba advised his peers of the risks of intoxicated driving and laid out what they had to lose.

On Friday, students of the parents who were killed in the mock crash planned to read their obituaries before the senior class.

“I know that you’re going through school thinking that sometimes people don’t care about you,” Truman teacher Jill Saul told students. “But I want to show you and point out to you how many people from the community are here for you.”

At St. Mary Medical Center, the mock DUI crash served as a training drill for their Level Two trauma team, which operates around the clock, said Kim Everett, the hospital’s trauma prevention coordinator.

“This is realistic for the kids and we go through what we would for real trauma patients,” she said.

“Our goal is to prevent trauma.”