The mother of a “dead” teenager sobbed and wailed as many of the 2,600 students from Westview High School tried to hold back tears at Wildcat Stadium this morning. She was crying because her son was sprawled out “dead” on the hood of a crashed car. Firefighters had arrived at a simulated motor vehicle crash with multiple injuries and they quickly realized that the woman’s son had passed away. Meanwhile, six other “patients” needed treatment and LifeFlight was on the way to transport the most critical of them.
The SKID (which stands for Stop Kids Intoxicated Driving) demonstration at Westview High School is a powerful, emotional demonstration of what happens when people drink and drive. Students who volunteer to act as “victims” receive realistic makeup that makes them appear to be seriously injured or bleeding. The scenario is painfully true to life.
Firefighters work to stabilize the "patients" after cutting the roof off of one of the vehicles involved in the demonstration
Students gather in the bleachers before two cars which are draped in tarps. They listen as a narrator sets the scene: A group of recently graduated seniors attends a party, gets drunk, and drives toward home. On their way, the driver of the car crosses the center-line and collides head-on with another vehicle with three people inside. The tarps are drawn away from the vehicles and the students in the audience see their friends in the cars dazed, bleeding and crying for help. A boy has been tossed through the windshield of one car and lays on the hood, deceased.
The scenario plays out as it would if it were real. Someone calls 9-1-1. Bystanders try to help. Firefighters and sheriff’s deputies arrive and begin working to triage the scene. Life Flight is called for the most critical patient as firefighters quickly determine that one person has died. The deceased boy’s family arrives at the scene of the accident and the mother becomes hysterical. Emergency personnel work quickly and professionally as students in the audience watch in stunned silence.
Before long, the patients are gone, the medical examiner declares the boy deceased and a funeral home takes away his body. The demonstration is over in less than 45 minutes, but you can tell that this is something both the students and participants will remember for a long time.
In the 12 years that TVF&R and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office has been arranging for and presenting the SKID program, 86,500 students have witnessed the presentation.
