When high school students start fainting, the message is getting through.
On Thursday teens at Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute were scared straight, learning the horrors bad decision making when drinking can result during the Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth (P.A.R.T.Y.) presentation put on by the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre .
Travelling from station to station, they saw in graphic detail how mangled a body can be after a collision, listened to a series of coroner’s tales and got the straight talk from a funeral-home director about the impact a teen’s death can have on family and friends.
Several students keeled over after a visit to the makeshift trauma room, giving them pause for thought, a sure sign the message was hitting home.
“The P.A.R.T.Y. program is very effective in showing students what actually happens and definitely educates students on what the negative side effects of partying are,” said 16-year-old Churchill student Logan Turner.
It’s an issue students should be thinking about seriously, Turner added.
“I think it gets our minds thinking about it a lot earlier then maybe 25, when their brains start developing and they would be thinking of that.”
Jennifer Kajorinne said it was shocking to see.
The Grade 11 student said it was a valuable lesson for everyone.
“We’ve learned the majority of tragedies that happen among young people are not actually accidents, but they’re preventable and predictable,” the 16-year-old said.
“When you’re in school you see people doing things that aren’t the smartest. And hopefully this will be an eye-opener for most people.”
The program, first rolled out at Churchill a year ago, has expanded to include St. Ignatius High School this year.
Shelley Chisholm, the regional injury prevention lead at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, said getting the message out as early as possible to teens who might engage in questionable behaviour is the best way to minimize the consequences.
The alternative is finding them in the trauma room or worse yet, the morgue.
“We cover lots of high-risk activities that kids do. Obviously there are motor vehicles, ATVs, drinking or drugs and combinations of those things. They can get so intoxicated that they pass out or injure themselves that way. There’s diving errors and not knowing how deep the water. They could end up with spinal injuries that way,” Chisholm said.
“There’s a lot of things young people are doing today. We’re just trying to get them to think of some fo those risks and consequences in advance.”
