'Crash' reminds drinking, driving don't mix

SANDPOINT — Like a water balloon bursting, glass shards blew across the pavement as people smashed through windows and blood, limbs and beer cans toppled into the street.

It was the sort of T-bone crash that makes emergency workers take notice.

Even if it was fake.

“I got kind of emotional,” Capt. Jake Hilton of the Sandpoint Fire Department said.

The idea that a drunken driver could cause so much destruction and the loss of lives made him consider his own children.

Hilton directed volunteers and equipment at the scene of a mock DUI accident Thursday morning at the Bonner County Fairgrounds.

The event was staged in part as a learning tool for local EMS and police, and as a warning  on the dangers of impaired driving to area high school seniors who watched from the sidelines.

The scenario, comprised of a two-car collision involving teens putatively impaired by drug or alcohol use, was set up before students arrived. High school seniors from Clark Fork, Sandpoint, Priest River and Lake Pend Oreille High watched as ISP troopers and county deputies arrived on the scene.

Emergency units were notified and, with lights spinning, the trucks with their extrication equipment, and ambulances rolled to the scene.

Bleeding and moaning bodies were lying on hoods, limbs hung from windows devoid of glass that lay shattered along with booze bottles and cans nearby.

Amidst crackling radios and voices barking commands, crews went to work as students watched.

“It gets the point across,” Adam Crossingham, a Sandpoint High School senior, said. “It makes people think twice about drinking and driving.”

More than 400 students in a semi-circle around the accident scene gave personnel room to roll gurneys, pry doors and car tops of vehicles and administer first-aid.

They watched as parents — the crash victims were volunteer actors — mourned the loss of their daughter as a hearse and county coronor pulled into the scene.

“It’s a legitimate representation of what happens in this situation,” Genevieve Pugesek of SHS, said. “It would suck. Especially if you were someone’s parent.”

The realization hit home with Tori Burnham, a SHS senior.

“It opened my eyes a lot,” she said. “One mistake can affect so many people.”

 Trooper Jeff Jayne, one of the original coordinators of the spring mock that was brought to Sandpoint nine years ago, said it is a tool for teens who might not otherwise learn the lesson until it is too late.

“In the nine years we’ve had this,” Jayne said, “there has not been a single car crash during graduation week.”

Chris Yount, a ISP corporal from Priest River, said wrecks are the leading cause of death among young people.

“The number one killer one people from one to 25 is traffic crashes,” Yount said. “Don’t be a statistic. Make the right decision.”

The state logs approximately 170 fatal crashes annually with about half caused by impaired drivers.

County deputies, state troopers and staff from Bonner General Hospital were among volunteers at Thursday’s event that included Northside Fire, Sandpoint  Fire and Bonner County EMS.

For Hilton, the exercise was partly training and partly more.

“Strictly from the training perspective, the value can’t be understated,” he said.

Primarily it is a concerted effort to show teens the destruction caused by drinking and driving and the impact of injury, or fatality crashes on all involved.

“We’re not immune,” Hilton said. “I fond myself a little bit emotional when I think of how many fatalities we’ve had and the effect they have on our members.”