Hey all. This week Classy Tuesday fell on a very important day in the year. Every 2 or 3 years local schools participate in a program called Shattered Lives. It centers around drunk driving and the serious problem that it is. And while looking classy is an important thing, I'd like to take today's post as an opportunity to talk about my experiences today.
Shattered Lives begins with student volunteers staging a scene of a severe drunk driving accident complete with professional make up injuries and turned over cars. The student body is called out and then the action really begins. Ambulances, fire trucks, and the police screech into the back parking lot mimicking what actually goes on in a drunk driving emergency. "Injured" students are placed in stretchers and taken away in ambulances. Students killed on scene are put into body bags and taken away in the coroner's van. At my school we are privileged to have a life flight helicopter to take kids away. The "cause(s)" aka the drunk drivers are taken into custody in police cars and taken to jail.
All throughout the day, every 15 minutes to be exact, a heart beat ending in a flat line is played over the PA system, symbolizing the one teenager who dies every 15 minutes as a result of a drunk driving incident. Additionally other volunteers are "taken" during the day by the grim reaper. The reaper knocks heavily on the door to announce their coming and they enter accompanied by paramedics and police. They announce the classmate who has died and then their obituary is read to the class.
The whole experience is made even more horrible by the obituary wall, a wall somewhere public, in our case the back side of the auditorium, where pictures and obituaries of the teenagers killed are. To help ease the pain of the mourning students, a booth with tissues and sticky notes is placed near the wall. Students are allowed to write notes to the "deceased" and stick them onto their pictures. It helps the students mourn in groups. To remember that they are not alone, others are suffering with the loss of their friends too.
Overall it was an extremely emotional day. A good friend of mine "died" in the middle of newspaper and hearing her obituary was the hardest part. Additionally, another of my friends was killed at the scene and the stories I've heard about him are the hardest to hear. Keep in mind that parents are encouraged to come and to "say goodbye" to their children. Garrett's father stroked his face and kissed his forehead, saying goodbye as best as he could. Additionally, this year one of the "drunk drivers" was a twin, her brother also participated as "one of her passengers". Upon booking her for driving drunk the police informed her that she had killed her twin brother, which completely destroyed her. Her parents had "as good as lost two children" that day. To add to all the emotional trauma, three years ago a student was killed in a one car accident when his car collided with a tree late at night, alcohol was suspected. This year, shattered lives fell on the three year anniversary of his death.
Just to sum it all up... The day was graphic and upsetting. I was on an emotional roller coaster. For the entire day, whenever the flat line came on, when a student "died", I was overcome with tears. It was incredibly sad. But the whole point was not to bog you down with troubles. The point of this was to remind my readers, all of you, that drinking and driving is NEVER a good idea. We all hear stories about people who have, people who got into the car with them, the people who were killed by them. You will never expect it to be you. And if it never is then you are incredibly lucky. But as someone who remembers what her neighborhood was like after an accident killed a neighbor and severely injured most of the family, everyone knows someone who has been affected by drunk driving. Please, don't become a statistic. Be sure that you make a good decision when it counts.
Keep it classy and more importantly, safe
~E
