Westlake High School student and SADD member Danny Lammers looks over the body of Ashley Pease, one of two ‘fatalities’ at Tuesday’s mock car crash. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Mock car crash drives message home
By Author
City
Published May 9, 2007

It hardly seemed like the time or place for a lesson on the dangers of drunk driving.  On a clear, sun-soaked Tuesday at Westlake High School’s football stadium, over 600 members of the junior and senior classes piled into the bleachers.  On the field below, two vehicles sat covered by dark red tarps.  The students basked in the sunshine, joking and chatting with their friends, until finally, the tarps came off.

Both vehicles were utterly mangled, apparently by a high-speed collision.  A bloodied female passenger lay sprawled across the hood of a pickup truck, while two more people were slumped inside unconscious.  The driver of the other vehicle staggered out, while his passenger lay motionless on the ground.

The May 1 event was Westlake High School’s bi-annual mock car crash.  The accident “victims” were actors, most of them members of Westlake High’s chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions.  Arranged by SADD in conjunction with the Westlake Parents Connection, the event is intended to drive home, in graphic fashion, the dangers of drunk driving in the run-up to prom and graduation season. 

SADD co-president Jessica Burbach said, “We worked in conjunction with Westlake Fire and Police and also Metro Hospital, and of course Westlake Parent Connection to put together this event.”  Jessica also wrote the script of the mock car crash, including a recording of prom night conversations between students that set the scene.

As student Danny Lammers stumbled among the wreckage, a recorded 911 call played, and Westlake Police and Paramedics responded to the stadium with lights and sirens blaring.  At this point, the true confusion and terror of an accident scene began to play out.  As police questioned, and then sobriety tested Lammers, paramedics attended to the other victims, describing the injuries of some, and pronouncing others dead at the scene. 

As the scene progressed, a noticeable hush fell over the bleachers.  Some students laughed nervously or looked away.  Others went deathly silent, or cried, seeing their peers and classmates injured or killed in front of them.

Lammers was eventually led off in handcuffs, as was his mother Sally in the bleachers, representing the parent responsible for providing alcohol to the teens.  Two of the victims, Matt Maciag and Ashley Pease, were pronounced “dead” on the scene.  Two other passengers, Alex Solomon and Giselle Kepler, were extracted from the pickup and strapped to stretchers. Solomon, who played the driver of the pickup, was gravely injured with chest trauma, head trauma and bilateral femur fractures.  At the conclusion of the re-enactment, a Metro Life Flight helicopter circled the stadium and landed on the field to carry him away.

The mock car crash was the first event of a month of programming against drunk driving by the Westlake Parent Connection.  Although the school has put on several mock car crashes in previous years, this year’s event placed a new emphasis on the culpability of parents who provide alcohol to teens.  Westlake Parent Connection also addressed this theme in “Parents Who Host Lose the Most,” a program held Tuesday night at Westlake Porter Library.

Dani Altieri Marinucci, president of the Westlake Parent Connection, has been involved with the group since its inception five years ago.  “We came together after a number of tragic events where we lost a number of students in Westlake, as well as an issue at one of our homecomings where close to a dozen kids came to the party drunk,” she said.  Her concern is understandable – Altieri Marinucci has four children, three of whom are in high school.

Altieri Marinucci says that the major purpose of the group is to educate parents about risky adolescent behavior.  Ample programming is already available for students, teachers and administrators, and Altieri Marinucci points out that parents often have more influence over their teens’ choices than anyone else.  Furthermore, parents themselves are sometimes responsible for providing alcohol to teens.

A large amount of community support was visible at the stadium on Tuesday.  Westlake emergency services provided two police cruisers, a fire engine and an ambulance for the demonstration. Westlake High’s resource officer participated in the re-enactment, and spoke to the crowd about the experience of responding to a fatal car accident.  More dramatically, Metro Life Flight provided the helicopter that touched down on the field.  Mayor Dennis Clough was also in attendance to present a proclamation against teenage drinking to SADD officers Jessica Burbach, Ging Hsu and Vahad Avenwalla. 

During prom and graduation season, underage drinking is on the minds of parents, teachers and administrators everywhere, and Westlake is no exception. High School Principal Tim Freeman is well aware of the extent of the problem.  Speaking before the event, he cited a statistic claiming that in the last 30 days, three out of every 10 high school students had ridden in a car with a driver that they knew had been drinking.  He alluded to students and innocent bystanders lost in past tragedies, saying, “It’s not the drunk ones that get killed.”

Westlake High School’s commencement is scheduled for June 4.  Event organizers hope the efforts of SADD and the Westlake Parent Connection will have an effect on the graduating class, and the drama of a Tuesday afternoon won’t be played out in real life.