It is every parent’s worst nightmare ... a late night call or knock at the door by police informing a parent that there has been a tragic alcohol/drug related accident involving their child.
It is every parent’s worst nightmare ... a late night call or knock at the door by police informing a parent that there has been a tragic alcohol/drug related accident involving their child. They anguish over the very idea each and every time their child goes out the door, and as prom night approaches the RISK Project of Muskoka Parry Sound and the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit along with community partners set the stage Friday to do what they can to help ensure that no parent has to deal with a tragedy.
Each year the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit and their community partners (paramedics, police and fire) run a mock crash and talk to area high school students about making smart choices when it comes to drugs and alcohol, but this year they kicked it up a notch by playing out a scenario that happens far too often across Canada each year.
The scenario starts with a video of six Grade 11 students from Almaguin Highlands Secondary School getting ready to embark on one of the most important nights in their lives ‘prom,’ but first they want to celebrate the rite of passage with their closest friends at a house party before joining their peers.
While the guys are waiting for the girls to put on the finishing touches they share some alcohol and cannabis. The girls are priming with coolers, energy drinks and a few “perks”.
There is a brief discussion between the students as to who is the least intoxicated when one of the students takes the keys and announces that she would be the one to drive and four of the students file into the van and head out with the other two friends following behind. Suddenly the students watching the video hear the screech of tires and smashing metal and exit out of the school to find a van wrapped around a telephone pole in the school field and the two friends finding their friends in a bad way.
The students then witness first responders (police, fire and ambulance) carry out their real duties in the “mock crash”. The fire department extricates victims; police make arrests; and bodies were carried away in body bags.
In the end two students are dead in the van, three are arrested (Van driver and the two students who found the crash) and one is left a paraplegic. Following the enactment, students had a heard what happens after the crash through
victim impact
statements as well as talking with the people in the trenches who have to deal with the fall when people make the bad decision to drink and drive.
Principal Ron Witmer tells the kids that he is filled with anxiety at the end of most weekends worried that there is bad news waiting upon his return to school.
“I walk into school after every weekend, after every summer holiday, after every Christmas holiday scared because my phone could be ringing or I could have a parent on the phone telling me that telling me that we’ve had a tragedy with one of (I call them) my kids,” he explains.
He says it is not just isolated to the one child and the family involved instead it goes involves the whole school and requires outside help to deal with the impact such a tragedy can have.
“Dealing with it in a high school setting is very traumatic ... and again it is one of your peers, you may not know the person but it is somebody in one of your classes, and so at that point and time I’ve got to pull in the critical response team.”
“When it happens the building could be open until midnight, it could be open until two or three in the morning I would have called guidance councillors and other support staff from all of the high schools and come into the facility and work with our community ... it’s more than just our community because parents would be coming in as well.”
“It throws the whole school into a tail spin for quite a while and at a loss, so again it is scary for me to come back after a weekend because I don’t know what I am walking into.”
He said the idea of the day’s exercise was to help the kids think smart.
“They are not telling you not to go out and have fun,” he says.
“We have had different organisations come in and talk about your Stupid Line try not to cross it. Especially now with the long weekend I want to see you back in this school on Tuesday so that I can sleep easy over the weekend.”
Participating in the rescue and extrication were members of the Sundridge Fire Department, the District of Parry Sound Emergency Services, the Ontario Provincial Police and Opatovsky Funeral Homes.
