Jeannie Causey, Editor
April 14, 2011
Filed under News, Top Stories
Seeing people your age die is not easy. Being the cause of their death is even harder. This year MISD students have the opportunity to see a truthful, brutally honest, display of a drunk driving accident involving high school students through the Every 15 Minutes program. The program started in 1996 in California, and has grown immensely from that point on. The program is done all over the world, and is a two-day event that challenges young adults to think about the what ifs in life at this age. A car crash is simulated and certain students are choosen to be either care-flighted, spend a night in jail, brought to a funeral home, or be one of the many “living dead.”
“I applied for the program because it sends a good message to my classmates,” senior Patrick Crisafulli said. “I was the dead person, and the hardest part of the whole thing was my parents having to see me dead.”
All parents, students, police and fire departments, funeral homes, and teachers are expected to participate and take the situation seriously. Many teenagers don’t grasp how much of an impact one decision can make. High school is a time when there is a lot of drinking, experimenting, and driving around with friends. Combine those three things and you could end lives, including your own. That’s what Every 15 Minutes is trying to tell students before some of the biggest nights of high school arrive, such as prom and graduation.
“I’m really against drunk driving,” senior Camille Cherry said. ”I wanted to learn more about it and set an example.”
The seniors and juniors were chosen through a random drawing that gave everyone an equal opportunity to participate. There were around 80 applicants, and only 35 seniors or juniors chosen to either be in the film, watch the filming, or go on the retreat that is part of the program. However, the “living dead” exercise that “kills” a student every 15 minutes is open to every grade. One student will be taken from class every 15 minutes, and return with a white face, a “living dead” t-shirt, and a mute mouth. The students will not be allowed to talk the rest of the day to really impress upon students what it would be like if someone close to them died because of a drunk driving.
“The program makes it more realistic and makes you never want to be a part of that situation,” Cherry said.
The scene was filmed at Newsom Stadium, with a mixture of students from each high school. Although there will not be a crash set up at each school, all students will gather in their own auditorium and watch the video and then listen to different speakers that have some sort of message about drunk driving. The program is meant to hopefully help teenagers become more aware of what the consequences of their actions are and influence them to make better decisions when faced with a choice. Students will soon be able to watch the video and see just how fast everything can change in an instant. This will be the first time since the year Summit opened that the program will be coming back to campus.
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