|
North Hills High School Mock Crash |
 On Thursday, April 30th, 2009, many agencies from around the region along with Ross/West View EMS assembled at North Hills High School to educate the senior student body on the effects of drunk driving. This program, called the 'Mock Crash', has been an annual event for over twenty years and involves the North Hills School District and their SADD Program, Ross Township Police, West View Borough Police, Laurel Gardens Fire Department, Life Flight, the Medical Examiner, Emergency Room Nurses from UPMC Passavant Hospital, Dispatchers from the County 9-1-1 Center, Mazur's Towing Company, and pre-selected students from the senior class. Mrs. Michelle Medic, SADD Program Director, works very closely with the students and has put countless hours into making this program a success.
The students are dressed in Prom gowns and tuxedos and made to look like they have been injured with a special make-up process called moulage. These students are carefully placed inside of cars and one student is situated through the windshield and is 'dead'. This student's prom date is 'drunk' and is given a field sobriety test by the police, arrested, and placed inside a police car. The rescue technicians have to use the jaws of life to get to the students in the other car and one of them is taken to Life Flight.
A presentation is made by the Emergency Room Nurses that involves a video showing the effects of drunk driving. The entire senior class is then taken to the parking lot of the high school to witness the 'mock crash'. After the crash, students return to their classrooms for the day, but not without reminders of what they have just witnessed. Throughout the day, Police Officers from Ross Township and West View Borough entered classrooms and a pre-selected student became a drunk driving fatal statistic for the day. That student was given a black t-shirt with a statistic number to symbolize that they were 'dead'. These 'statistics' finished their school day pretending as if they didn't exist. At the end of the school day, FIFTY students had become fatal statistics, representing the true number of people that will be killed in a drunk driving incident in the United States each and every day.
The Mock Crash has been a very successful program for the North Hills School District and the Avonworth School District and we would like to thank all of the agencies, the students, SADD Program Director, teachers and administrative staff who assist in helping to achieve the goal of eliminating drinking and driving. |
RWV News & Events