Inquiries can be sent to Captain James Grinolds, PULLMANLOCK@turbonet.com
Staff Writer at Moscow/Pullman Daily News
PALOUSE--Students at Garfield-Palouse High School learned what a person's brain looks like splattered on the ground this morning.
A mock drunk-driving accident planned by the Palouse Regional Explorer Search and Rescue as an educational project gave students a realistic look at the aftermath of an accident. It also served as a drill for emergency services personnel. Students posed as accident victims and were made up by emergency medical technician Patti Richards to look like they had really been injured.
By the time the rest of the students got outside to watch, Beau Hilty-Jones lay on the ground, his body mangled and head oozing blood. Sarah Pfaff stood over him wailing, "I didn't do it! I swear I didn't mean to do it!"
Her performance as the drunk driver and the trauma makeup made some people think for a minute a car had really struck a pedestrian. And that's what the organizers of the exercise wanted, said Ben Griner, captain of the Explorer Post and student body president.
"Its intent is to be used as a shock for students to see their friends in a trauma situation," said Griner, who planned the event. "We want to wake them up and show them the dangers of drinking and driving."
As police and ambulances rolled in with lights and sirens blaring, most people realized the accident was a fake. Still, some were shocked by what they saw. The pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene, and Hilty-Jones was placed in a body bag in front of the crowd. Pfaff, the driver, was handcuffed and arrested. The other injured passengers were taken away on backboards, in bloodsoaked bandages and oxygen masks.
"We just want to hit real hard the fact that drinking and driving doesn't pay," 1st Lt. Kory Oman said.
Some students didn't get the message. They laughed and joked about what kind of beer bottles were found in the car. But others took it to heart.
"Even if they knew it was a mock accident, a lot of people were really surprised by what they saw," Oman said.
In the mock accident, a car with four students in it driven by an intoxicated girl strikes and kills a pedestrian. The driver is not seriously injured, but her passengers who were not wearing seatbelts are. Even though they are not driving drunk, they suffer the consequences of getting in the car with someone who is.
"In this situation, they pay for that mistake," Oman said. "They are severely injured."
The student in the front passenger seat sustains serious head and neck injuries requiring transport by helicopter. The two in the back seat have multiple injuries and are taken by ambulance to a hospital.
All the victims were student council members and played their roles well. They didn't respond to the crowd or the emergency medical technicians who bandaged them and strapped them onto the backboards.
EMTs from Palouse and Garfield and Palouse police officers quickly arrived on the scene. Heartflite (ed: now known as Medstar) helicopter from Sacred Heart Medical Center joined in the exercise, landing on the playfield behind the school and taking the front-seat passenger to Pullman Memorial Hospital.
I think it went pretty doggone well," Police Chief Phineas Haglin said.
Students filed back into school afterward for special classes on drinking and driving.
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