THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250410
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Long : 147 lines
Tina Knehr was in chorus class Wednesday morning when she and about 450 other Perquimans County High School students were sent outside for an evacuation drill.
First they heard the sirens.
Then they saw the wreck.
Beside the school, emergency personnel worked to reach two bloodied people inside a vehicle. Within minutes, Knehr and others recognized the injured victims as fellow student Amy Whitehurst and health occupations teacher Mary Woodell.
A middle-aged man with minor wounds watched from the back of an ambulance.
Whitehurst and Woodell had to be taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital by the Nightingale helicopter.
An empty liquor bottle and several beer cans at the scene hinted at what this mock exercise was all about.
But students were the last to learn that the wreck wasn't for real.
``It took me about five minutes before I realized what they were doing,'' said Knehr, 16. ``I think everybody reacted the same way: They were shocked.''
That's exactly the reaction organizer Andrea N. Boone and members of the high school's Students Against Driving Drunk chapter wanted when they staged the scene along Jimmy Hunter Drive.
``If we can save just one life, it'll all be worth it,'' said Perquimans County Schools Superintendent Randall Henion. Throughout the region, high school students and officials are planning similar programs just prior to prom night to help ensure a safer social event.
Many of these staged events involve a lot of community participation - and are funded through a grant from the Governor's Highway Safety Program.
Currituck County High School has been staging mock crashes for three years. An immediate result of the would-be wrecks is that more people buckle up, said Sue Williamson, a social worker at the high school.
Currituck and Camden High School, among others, placed wrecked cars on school grounds this spring as a warning to teen drivers. Everything from door-decorating contests to candlight vigils are being used to promote sober and safe driving.
The efforts everywhere must be working because motor vehicle deaths among teens nationwide is 36 percent lower than it was 20 years ago.
And among drunken drivers killed in car crashes, the age group with the greatest decline the past five years is the 16- to 20-year-olds, according to the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety in Arlington, Va.
Most Albemarle area schools staging drunken-driving crashes give advance notice to both students and staff.
At Perquimans, all but the key players and school administrators were left in the dark until recently - and then only the teachers were told.
``We tossed around whether we should tell them or not,'' Boone said. ``We just wanted to make it as big an impact as possible.''
As a precaution, a Chowan Hospital counselor was on standby to treat any traumatized students. There didn't appear to be any.
Lucretia Wearring, who teaches developmentally disabled students, did clue in her kids - but gave very few details about the incident.
``I think that it's very important that my students see how this exercise is carried out so that if they are ever involved in this in real life they'll know how to react and what to do,'' she said.
Wearring's students do not drive. But four members of the class plan to attend the May 4 prom.
``They may not be drivers. But there is a certain responsibility that comes from riding with peers,'' she said.
SADD members and sophomores Nicole Hollowell, 16, and Heather Vanscoy, 15, believe the well-orchestrated exercise was effective.
``I think it's going to encourage people not to drink and drive because they can see what's going to happen to them,'' Hollowell said.
``People don't think it could happen to them until it hits close to home,'' classmate Vanscoy added.
Perquimans County High School Principal Elaine Pritchard echoed those sentiments.
``I think anytime you can expose them to the realities, it's helpful,'' she said.
Another feature of the Perquimans program was a mock trial held in the school auditorium after the outdoor demonstration.
``We wanted to make sure they understood all of the consequences people face when something like this happens,'' said Jeannie Umphlett, the high school's student alternative services coordinator.
Students listened - and occasionally laughed - as real-life lawyers Michael Johnson and John Matthews stated their cases before First District Judge C. Christopher Bean.
Deciding the fate of driver ``Jim Beam,'' better known in the community as local actor Phil McMullen, was a panel of 12 SADD students.
Even with his son as the jury foreman, Matthews quickly lost his case. Beam was sentenced to two years, without parole, in prison.
``There's never a day in court that we do not deal with driving while impaired,'' Bean told the assembly.
Next to illegal drugs, he said, ``it is probably the most serious criminal problem we face in society today.''
Motor vehicles are the No. 1 killer among teenagers, claiming 5,619 lives nationwide in 1994, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Although teenagers made up only 10 percent of the U.S. population that year, they represented 14 percent of all motor vehicle deaths.
In North Carolina for that same period, 312 young motorists were killed and another 42,000 injured, according to the National Safety Council's 1994 edition of ``Accident Facts.''
Not all of those motor vehicle fatalities involved alcohol.
But between July 1, 1994, and June 30, 1995, almost 7,400 teens were arrested for driving while impaired in the state, said Harriett Southerland, the state SADD coordinator.
SADD began in Massachusettes in 1981 as a way for young people to become more involved in anti-drunken-driving campaigns. Target groups include middle school, high school and college students.
There are 260 SADD chapters across the Tarheel state, including one in each county of the northeastern region.
The SADD program at Perquimans County High began about eight years ago with a handful of students. It now has almost 40 members and is growing.
While programs against drinking and driving are put on throughout the year, a special emphasis is placed on the prom season and graduation.
``That's a time when teenagers try to date like adults. And to a lot of these people, drinking is like being grown up,'' Southerland said.
Carolyn Rogers, a Perquimans County High health teacher who helped Boone organize Wednesday's events, was impressed with students' reactions.
``This is the quietest the auditorium has ever been for any assembly we've ever had,'' she said after the mock trial.
``I think that speaks well to the importance this has for the students,'' she added. ``Hopefully, this will sink in.'' MEMO: SCHOOL PROM NIGHTS
A few schools in the region have already held their senior proms,
including Dare County's Manteo High School, Holmes High School in
Edenton and Gates County High School in Gatesville.
Coming up are:
Friday: Ahoskie High School; Hertford County High School
May 4: Perquimans County High School; Camden High School
May 4: Currituck County High School; Northeastern High School
May 18: Cape Hatteras School
May 25: Bertie High School
This year, more than ever, programs are being used to discourage
drinking and driving during the prom weekend. Students in many of these
schools also are being asked to sign a contract that promotes sobriety.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
As two crash dummy impersonators look on, a victim of a staged
drunken-driving accident is prepared for transport by rescue
personnel. To heighten the effect, students at Perquimans County
High School weren't prepared for the demonstration.
by CNB