The PARTY (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth) Safe Program put on a staged car crash and demonstration of emergency procedures for Grade 10 students May 2.
The annual event is meant to showcase the dangers and consequences of drinking and driving and does so accompanied by a demonstrated rescue effort.
Many emergency service workers like Deputy Fire Chief Brian Powell volunteered their time to teach this important lesson to students.
“The PARTY program has been going on for a number of years now and we’ve been given the instruction to provide as much realism (as we can) to this event,” Powell explained.
In the scenario, two cars collided head-on. Four people were involved. One was found to be intoxicated and ended up killing one of the teenagers in the vehicle he collided with.
Grade 11 student Chloe Shaber played the role of the dead teenager. She strongly believes in the message of the demonstration.
“It’s really important that people can see a situation like this. It’s even more impacting when it’s a person they know. That really helps get the point across of don’t drink and drive,” Shaber said.
The demonstration began with responders having to wait for FortisAlberta employees to ensure that the power poles on top of the collided vehicles weren’t charged and that it was safe for emergency crews to go in and do their job.
There were demonstrations of the hard work that emergency workers do in order to save lives in these situations.
That had an impact on viewers like Grade 10 student Harrison Smith who is considering a career in emergency services.
“I’ve always kind of wanted to be a police officer, so I feel like this helped reinforce that,” Smith said.
Montana Durand, a Grade 11 student, was so impacted by the demonstration last year that she chose to be involved this year too.
“I had been a witness last year and it really hit me because the people who had participated I knew personally,” said Durand. “It was kind of scary to think that it can actually happen to people close to you.”
Durand has never actually lost anyone personally to a fatality like this but is aware of the kind of pain that that causes.
“I have close friends who have had family members that were involved in situations like this and it was just very, very devastating to see how torn up they were after hearing what had happened,” she said.
Smith also hasn’t lost anyone from an accident like the one demonstrated but feels that this demonstration does a good job of indicating the impact.
“I’ve never had any family members die from an accident like this. I know people who have, and you can get an understanding that this is sad and has a real impact,” Smith said.
After the collision demonstration, the students split into groups and went to Olds Hospital and Care Centre as well as a funeral home to find out what happens to crash victims after leaving the crash site.
