Century High School hosts drunk driving crash simulation to raise awareness

Every 15 minutes, someone dies in an accident involving drugs or alcohol. That’s why Century High School in Pocatello and local emergency response agencies brought the “Every 15 Minutes Project” to the school on Wednesday.

The hope was that it would show kids first-hand what can happen when you drive drunk.

Even though the focus, and cause of the simulated crash, was drinking, the goal was to raise awareness about overall safety behind the wheel.

Idaho State Police were the first on the scene at Century High School, where officers found two vehicles and several students injured.

The rest of Century’s student body watched from the sidelines behind police tape.

The crash was as real as was possible.

Students watched as firefighters cut into a car and chopped off the hood to extricate a passenger in the back seat. Life flight was called in to air-lift another passenger who was deemed critical by first responders. There was also one fatality, who police covered in a white sheet and who coroners later zipped into a body bag.

Police spoke to the driver and announced the cause of the crash was that he had been drinking.

The entire simulation was done as realistically as possible to make it more effective to students about how dangerous drunk driving can be. By using classmates and friends and people the students knew, emergency responders say that can make a bigger imprint of the consequences.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to explain the importance of not only inattentive driving but driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs and the lasting effects it can have, not just on you or your family, but the whole community,” said Officer Zac Bartschi, with Pocatello police and the school resource officer at Century High School.

Both students who watched and those who participated said it was very effective and impactful for them.

“After seeing this, I want to make sure that other people aren’t getting drunk and that other people are more aware,” said Alex Leonard, a student.

“We had to go to the funeral home and I had to pick out my casket and I had to pick out everything,” said Brook Chilton, who was the staged fatality in the accident. “So that was definitely different than just getting hurt.”

“The one that died is actually my best friend and so it made things a lot bigger and such a big impact that she could actually die from something like this,” said Bailey Harris, another staged accident victim.

Pocatello police, the Pocatello fire department, the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Police and Wilks Funeral Home all played a part in the simulation. The cars used were from Stan’s Towing.

After the simulation, an assembly was held to talk to students about the risks of drinking and driving, texting while driving, and just plain inattentiveness behind the wheel. The casket for the student who died in the crash sat in the middle of the student body as a county judge talked to students about the risks and repercussions from making poor choices before taking the wheel.