By Dean Lee Evans
Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER, PA - A girl calls for help as her friend lies dead in the street.
A bloodied, grief-stricken, drunken teen is detained by police.
A helicopter lands on a nearby field, waiting to take a critically-injured teen to the hospital.
That was the scene last Wednesday outside Ephrata Area High School as several organizations came together to create a dramatic re-enactment of an accident caused by drunken driving.
The staged accident was part of a two-day program based on the national “Every 15 Minutes” campaign. The title was influenced by a study done in 1980 that revealed that, on average, someone was killed every 15 minutes because of drunken driving.
While that statistic has decreased over the past 32 years, crashes caused by drunken drivers continue to be a leading cause of death and injury for students nationwide.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attributed 31 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2010 to drunken driving.
“It is a powerful presentation,” said Stephanie Gingrich, Ephrata’s director of community relations.
Gingrich added that the program is an important one that sheds light on the dangers of distracted driving as well.
According to the United States Department of Transportation, more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010 in accidents attributed to districted driving.
The simulated crash was a coordinated effort between the Ephrata Police Department, Akron and Pioneer fire companies, the Ephrata Community Ambulance Association, Ephrata Community Hospital and Stradling Funeral Home.
Ephrata Officer Peter Sheppard, the high school student resource officer, also was instrumental in preparing this year’s re-enactment.
Adding to the realism, students who participated in the crash scene were made to appear as if they had bloody wounds. Firefighters removed one teen from a wrecked vehicle by cutting off the roof of the car, while another dressed as the Grim Reaper stood near a lifeless body in the middle of the road - simulating her death after being thrown through the windshield of a car.
The wailing of sirens from fire engines, ambulances, police cars and other emergency vehicles - nearly a dozen in all - filled nearby streets.
Junior and senior students watched the scene unfold before them, as did many residents.
Several students participating in the event gathered on one street corner wearing white face paint.
“The white faces are supposed to signify losing their lives after being involved in an alcohol-related collision,” Sheppard said.
Gingrich said students who participated in the re-enactment were sent on an overnight retreat.
There, she said, they wrote letters to their parents from the perspective of being dead. Parents wrote letters saying all the things they wished they had said.
Last week’s hourlong re-enactment culminated with a Hershey Medical Center Life Lion helicopter landing on the school’s lacrosse field.
The two-day program concluded Thursday morning with an assembly featuring a guest speaker who lost a sibling in an accident caused by a drunken driver.
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