Every few years, my school puts on a huge production called "Every Fifteen Minutes". This production is a humongous demo of the consiquences of driving under the influence. I can tell the story as things go through. It started today, 5/26/05, and continues tommorow, and I believe through the weekend. So here's how the story goes: (Oh also, you need to read everything for it to make sense, and its worth the read)

In 3rd period this morning, about 10:30 AM, our school's PA system rang with a phone call. A girl on the phone was reporting a head on collision to the police. She sounded confused, and scared. More conversation continued, then eventually they dispatched saftey people and police. Thats when we then left for the football field.

Upon walking onto the football field, me and the entire school witnessed a grusome head on collision. Now I know its on the football field and it doesn't really make that much logical "sense". But the wreckage they recreated was very realistic. Each car's front end was totally smashed, and one of the cars had blood all over the front hood/bumper etc. One person laid dead on the ground, others dead in the car, and one guy walking around drunk (The drunk driver).

We all took our seats, and second after seconds things got busier and hectic. First round the Fire Chief rolled up in his SUV. Later, many squad cars, police on motorcycles, fire trucks, and and ambulance. The fire crew and ambulance crew went over to the car, and got out the dead people. No, they didn't just "open the doors" or slide them out, the broke windows, got out the huge saw, and ACTUALLY tore the cars apart to get the people. The fire crew used all the tools and equipment necissary. Eventually a helicoptor came and landed on the baseball field to airlift one of the dead people in the cars, others were loaded into the ambulance. One person was declared dead on the scene.

The police did all the sobriety tests with the drunk person and declared him Driving Under the Influence. Eventually the Mortuary Came, and took the dead person away. The scene was cleaned up, and we were simply dismissed to class without an explenation of what happened.

Later on that day, the "Every Fifteen Minutes" carried on. According to statistics, a person dies from drunk driving, every fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes at our school, one person was removed from class, and pronounced dead. Their graves were put up in the ampetheatre, and death notices were placed on their locker. These people taken out of class, are spending the entire day and night in a hotel, and are seperated from the rest of the school.

As for the people involved in the accident, they actually have to stay where they are going. The person who got caught Driving Under The Influence, actually has to spend the night in prision. The person airlifted was later pronounced dead, he eventually went to the mortuary, and the people that went to the hospital also have to stay there.

This all happened today. Tommorow, we have the memorial session for The two people that died. And the people that died every fifteen minutes are not coming to school.

Now, whats the point of this? I will tell you. I take it one simple way. Now there are a lot of programs, and enforcements at school that are all "don't drink blah blah blah". And I know its annoying cause you hear the same thing over and over again, but this is far different.

The morale of this entire setup is to make a point that it only takes ONE wrong decicion to change your life....forever. Dead or alive, one accident DUI can change everything. Thats the whole point of it. We all know drinking and driving don't go together, but seeing the actual consequences for yourself, makes a big impression.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Please let me know in this thread.

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sounds like a pretty powerful "program" or demonstration. far different from what they did at my school.

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Are these students random? Or are they planned? Because I wouldn't want to randomly be selected as the one to go to prison. Also, how would they set up the thing with all the cars? It's weird.

They've been planning for over 6 months, and everyone that was chosen does it voluntarily. The 15 minute people are given notice as well. However, the whole event was kept hush hush to offer a more powerful surprise.

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My school also did a fake car crash and even had medflight come in. They also used jaws of life to cut kids out and at the end they set up a fake funeral in the gym. and then they had a people talk about how "my kid went to prom and never came back"

http://www.yatpay.net/pics/04-04-28/05809.jpg

http://www.yatpay.net/pics/04-04-28/05808.jpg

If it makes one person think twice, and make smarter decisions, it truly IS worth it.

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My school did the same thing, though not as long. We did have life flight come in (wickedly cool but Ive seen it at an actual accident that I WATCHED happen) and the people were all messed up and such.


And I think its a powerful and useful tool. fbama is right, if it only changes one person, its all the difference in the world. I caught news a year ago that a set of kids I used to know quite well back in elementary were drinking and driving and rolled / flipped their car some 10 times. Left one kid in constant pain for his entire life and as of now, all friendships with that person and the parents are gone because the person involved refused to help pay for the kids medical bills!!

Which is a totally different story, but its amazing that some people can not only put others at risk, but be so selfish afterwards to not want to help take care of the person they injured for life. Sickening.


If you are going to drink, have someone drive you. Im not against drinking (as long as you dont get drunk...but we know how that goes) but actually do try to use some sort of sense. Nice to know some people have working, functioning brains out there.

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That is kinda what our school does. We do this program called Shattered Dreams. http://www.tabc.state.tx.us/educa/shatdreams.htm

It all has the same meaning to it tho. Our school does it every year, right before prom, so the kids wont drink and drive. Plus only Junior and Seniors are allowed to watch it.

Wow:O That's pretty powerful message there. I'd wish it was required for all High Schools to do. And they should have little kids involved so it would send an EVEN Stronger message out there.

That program seems very popular with most of the high schools up in the North. Down here in Texas, we don't have many things about DUIs at all. It's pretty bad. I wish our school had the mock car crash program. I saw an article about it on Channel One (a national school news program). I asked most of my friends if they knew about the mock car crash, but no one did. And we have the perfect place to have it set up too. We have a major street running through the middle of our campus.

SFFT, that's a great version of the 15 minutes thing. Thanks for the link. And Kyle, thanks for the article. Great job. Mamba-- I'm not sure if they would show it to younger elementary children. That would probably mortify them and probably make them very upset and that would in turn, probably upset their parents. Which would not be good for a school administration.

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YO, LectricShark, I didn't know you lived in Texas. Thats pretty cool. Maybe you can get your school involved in Shattered Dreams. We kinda have a 15 mintue thingy. This is how it works. Like ever 15 minutes, you would hear a heart beat over the intercom, then after 10-15 seconds, it will stop and like making a beeping noise. The beeping noise represnts that some one has died. Before this all happens, there are like say 20-25 people that will volunteer as being some one who died. So when ever the heart stops beating over the intercom a Grim Reaper comes and like points at one of the volunteers through out the day. That person like goes to some room and gets their face painted black and puts on this shattered dreams shirt. Then they report back to their class or where ever they have been. Then like a cut out of that person is put right where they supposely "died". It is very scary. The person can not talk at all for the rest of the day and not even smile. They also have like a police officer come and say that one of our fellow class mates has dead and all this stuff. Our shattered dreams lasts for roughly a week or so. They have the airlife come in, abulance, they have a funeral, the drunk driver goes to jail, they have a real court hearing and everything. It is very realistic.

No I meant use it at a high school. What I meant was use little kids as crash victims so the High schoolers get a deeper impact of what is going on.

Our school does the same thing but only before Prom and for Juniors and Seniors. It looks real. They had ours in the football field and I was in gym walking the track when they were demonstrating it. It was pretty amazing. Our school didn't have the kids leave though. It was just an hour and a half demonstration and then back to trig...

i go to a private school but on wednesday, my town public school is having a program for drunk driving and we're invited to go to it (which i am). i dont really know all the details on whats going on but i know we're going to be able to get in the drivers seat of a car that has its steering messed up to simulate how it would feel to be driving drunk. i'll give more details on wednesday (6/1/05)

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Have you ever heard of drunk goggles? It's a really neat contraption. They portray what you see whenever you would drive drunk. My friends say the Drivers Ed people make you practice driving with them on, so you know what it 'feels' like whenever you drive drunk.
SFFT- haha yeah, I do. Been here at TN since October 2001, and you've never noticed? That seems like a pretty cool program. But one thing i dont tihnk i could take very seriously is the whole grim reaper thing. I'm not sure the whole thing where he/she points at the victim is a great idea. I like the idea of the heartbeat. That sure is effective, but the grim reaper? That is too amusing for me to be serious. They could have it be everything dark and deathly instead of someone dressed as the Grim Reaper. Too costume-ish for me. But the entire idea is great. Does it work well at your school? The effect and such? How do your peers react to the whole Grim thing?
Mamba- That makes sense now. I didnt understand that you meant that. I agree, that would make even more of a powerful effect.

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Well, today we had a "memorial service" as an assembly today, and it was even more powerfull than yesterday. Everything linked together to create the most powerfull message ever. It was...intense to say the least.

We all went to the gym for a memorial service for those who died. Upon entering the gym, I saw a casket, tombstones for all those that died every 15 minutes, and parents of the dead children. The service started out with a pastor giving a memorial speech that you would typically find at any funeral, talking about the losses of friends and family. Then later, we moved on to the speeches.

A few dead kids (Not literal of course) that were mocking a death every 15 minutes read letters they read to their parents. They talked about what life would be like without them, and themselves. The parents too, brought up letters and read them out loud, talking about how difficult it would be to live their life, without their kids.

After that, the Sheriff spoke and thanked everyone for their participation. He talked about consiquences, and decisions.

After the Sheriff, we moved onto the video...which was proabobly the most powerfull thing of all. The video, made by students, included footage from the entire event. The movie started out with a typical day of school, everyone enjoying themselves and their friends. Until the movie takes a sharp turn with footage of the crash scene. Now, they got way closer details than I could see, and it was...graphic to say the least. It was really...really..graphic. The camera crew followed the person that was declared dead on the scene to the hospital, where their parents confronted their dead child. They also followed various other people that were injured.

After the entire sequence, that wasn't enough to push its movement. Later on, the video included all the 15 minute people that died during yesterday. The people that put it together made sure they got a broad group of people. What really made me sad...was that I saw an alarming amount of my friends. The first one, they even listed, was my best friend since kindergarden. I later saw my Prom Date, good buddies of mine, one of my favorite Senior Girls, just a lot of good people that I knew and had great relationships with. Then I realized...what my life would be like, without them. A lot of people realized this too, with the broad arangment of people. Just the fact, that these people could be dead....made me...very sad.

The movie ended, and we had a speaker. He was a a conselor for drunk driving. Now his speech was long, so I will cut to the chase. This guy, got drunk, and drove, and killed his own brother. It was really a shock, and during the story (As well as the movie) I could hear a lot of people at my school crying. It was really powerfull. The speaker mentioned the horrors of killing your own brother by your own fault. That made me sick. I think that made everyone sick.

Thats about it, but it was really powerfull, and I really....really felt impacted. The lunch period was sort of mellow cause everyone was sort of down, but after a hour or so everyone was back to their normal self kind of (Not like....bad self). I think I will always remember the "Every Fifteen Minutes" event. I hope you all too. I will think of everything I saw if I decide to drink (Even though I am against teen/binge drinking)

As I bring it up again, the entire event was not based around "Drunk Driving Is Bad". Its about choices and their consiquences. So I ask all of you, make the right choice. I know many of you will, but...learn from this, cause I did. I knew before that drunk driving was really horrible, but to see a lot of my friends die right before me in a reinactment, made me sick.

And thats all I have to say.

Questions, Comments, Concerns? Ask away.

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Yes. We do it. My high school (notre dame high school) was actually the first school ever to do it, and we made the sample video that you guys might have watched.

We havn't done it for a couple years and I havn't done it yet, but it is planned to be done next year.

At our school we basically just have a speech told to us, and that's pretty much it. Sad considering we have the worst drug/alcohol problems in the state because everyone can easily afford them.

I mean this happened and all, but everyone still denies that the town has a drinking problem because we're rich and nothings wrong with rich people Since that happened they have done nothing except gotten the "Hazing Hotline" which is an answering machine to tattle with. The "Zero Tolerance" policy they put up hasn't been implimented once, even though at least 30 busted kids this year alone should have been expelled for drinking and paddling each other.


EDIT: I forgot to stay on topic . Anyways, it's great that your school even bothers with this elaborate of a deal. I'd be that idiot that volunteers to go to prison.

Alot of people stray away from thoughts of "what if I died?" "what if I lost a loved one?" Because naturally, they bring pain to our hearts and its not the most pleasant thing to think about.


Call me odd, but I think about such things at least every other day. I think its always on my conscience because not that Im afraid to die, but Im afraid to leave behind my friends, my family. I also know that I will have a large impact on someone or some people in my life and I dont want to cheat them out of the experience. I also know Im going to have a wife some day and especially for her (luckily for me, its not too far away and I have her already) I dont want to cut her short on something shes looking forward too.

Am I blessed? Yes. There are people out there less fortunate than I. I think what helps drive me is that I could be a blessing to one of those people. I could be the person that makes them think "Man, if I died...he (they) would miss me". Too many people in this world dont have people like that to think about and sadly it causes too many suicides.

Even more sad to think those people dont hold out in hope that someone may come looking for them.


Personally, if you are a person with family, loved ones, signifcant others, you need to think about death. You need to think man, I could go today, tomorrow, the next day, etc. and learn to live life one day at a time making the most of it. Youll see your life and your relationships turn completely the day you start living one day at a time and making decisions that are wise and show those people that you care about them, love them.

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Like everyone takes it as a big deal. At the end of the day, when the Grim and all his "victims" walk from the high school to the parking lot, they go by the buses which picks up the little kids and all the middle schoolers, they think It is funny. They laugh and point at all of them. So they have no idea what it really means. So they are like the only ones who laugh and all.

Its pretty effective. Some girls cried, If I remember.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but my school just had the mock car crash sequence today. You would think that it's just a fake deal, but when several of my friends, one of my really close friends, was in the crash and 'died', it really puts things into perspective. Also, every fifteen minutes, like Kyle said, a sound of a heartbeat, then an EKG, then the EKG flatlining, was played over our intercom, signifying the death of another victim of alcohol related incidences. Then, the Grim Reaper, like explained in the other posts, would pick students and take them away from class, as a State Trooper would read a mini-eulogy of that student.

The video from my school should be up soon.
http://www.shatteredlives-montgomerycounty.com

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We used to have something like that in my high school back in like 10th grade, then they discontinued it for no apparent reason. I thought it was a great demonstration.

I'd like to see what your school does. Sounds like a great program.

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