PHS club hopes to have impact with mock crash

By Rusty Nixon
Director of Development and Alumni Affairs

PLYMOUTH - Sometimes there is nothing like a visual example to help learning. The Plymouth High School Leaders Eliminating Alcohol and Drugs (LEAD) club hopes that will be the case on Thursday.

The club will be holding a mock crash at 10 a.m. in front of the High School to be witnessed by the student body. Students, teachers, sheriff's deputies, firefighters and emergency medical technicians will be participating in the event, which will include real wrecked automobiles, an ambulance, deputy cruisers, fire trucks and a helicopter.

Knowing that every 50 minutes somebody dies in a car accident due to drinking and driving each year LEAD tries to make the point especially during prom season. The mock crash is a tool they have used several times in the past.

"We've been doing something for at least 12 years or so," said Gene Skirvin, teacher at PHS and sponsor of the club. "We don't do this each year and the last time was three years ago."

"The Mock Crash is meant to discourage teens from drinking and driving not only on prom night, which will be held the following Saturday, but also throughout their lives," said Skirvin. "Since it's so close to prom we want to make an effort to show teens the seriousness in making the right choices. Teens can destroy their own lives, and lives around them just by using bad judgment one night."

The reaction has been positive.

"The students witnessing the mock crash have even very serious and sober in the past," said Skirvin. "If we can save the life of just one person, because they don't drink and drive it was a success.  It is just like a lot of things in education, in the fact, that you may never know the impact that was made."

The Mock Crash will be based on a young driver who is under the influence of alcohol. Rescue workers will then re-enact what happens at the crash scene.