Kassidy Pascoe would be devastated if she was responsible for the death of a friend.
“I could not even imagine how it would feel. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself after,” said the Grade 11 Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute student.
Pascoe was one of hundreds of students who witnessed a mock disaster scene on the school’s football field Monday. The staged scene was of a drunk driving incident where a car full of inebriated teenagers struck a vehicle carrying a married couple.
Students watched as firefighters, police officers and paramedics responded to the scene as they would a real incident, including cutting the roofs of the vehicles off to extract the passengers and having a hearse leave with the deceased characters.
“It’s kind of intense,” said Pascoe. “It was really realistic. It gave an in-depth look to how a scene like this happens.”
Grade 10 student Jesse Lofgren found the demonstrating touching.
“It was pretty real with all the fire trucks and police officers and everything,” he said.
“There’s blood on their faces and everything.”
Dean Vanroon thought the message would reach students, but was concerned there are still those stubborn few who will continue to drink and drive.
The Grade 12 student was surprised by the amount of work it takes for emergency personnel to respond to an incident of this type.
“It’s great to know exactly what they do when the incidents happen. Before I kind of just thought they come and they do this and that. It’s taking a long time to do what they do; it’s not easy,” he said.
The demonstration was organized by Grade 11 student Mat Lesnick who thought a mock scene would have more impact than the usual videos teens watch about the dangers of drinking and driving in school.
“We thought this year it was a really strong message that needed to be brought out about drinking and driving,” he said. “This year I thought that this school really needs a big bang at the end of Alcohol Awareness Week.”
Lesnick began organizing the event in September and said all the local emergency responders were quick to jump on board the project.
It was also important to cast the demonstration with familiar faces.
Two teachers played the married couple and four well-known students played the teens. Lesnick said they hoped the message would resonate more if the students could picture the victims as people they know.
