Working to End the Carnage : Youth Programs Credited for Drop in South County Trauma Cases

As the head of one of Orange County’s three trauma centers, Dr. Thomas Shaver sometimes spends 24 straight hours in the operating room, seeing one patient after another, mending wounds and reviving badly injured people from the brink of death.

But saving patients is the rewarding part of the job. The difficult task, Shaver says, is telling parents that their children have died or have been permanently crippled as a result of a drunk-driving accident.

So it’s with satisfaction and relief that Shaver says he does not foresee as many of those conversations this year if the trend of the past two years continues. Statistics compiled by Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, which serves an estimated 450,000 people in South County, show a significant decline since 1989 in trauma cases, particularly those involving drivers 25 years old and under.

Officials with the California Highway Patrol say the decreasing numbers of trauma cases among all age groups could be related to an increasing awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving and last year’s lowering of the blood/alcohol level, at which a driver is considered legally intoxicated, to 0.08.

At the same time, Municipal Judge Pamela L. Iles, school administrators and law enforcement officials say a good deal of the credit for the the decline in trauma cases involving teen-agers and young adults in South County is the result of five years of public education programs that have targeted these age groups. Student-run taxi services, stricter state drunk-driving laws and a groundbreaking program that sends some youth offenders on visits to trauma centers all are credited with helping South County bring down its death and injury toll.

Whatever the reason, Mission Hospital records show that only seven Orange County drivers 18 or under were sent to that trauma center as a result of drunk-driving accidents last year--contrasted with 11 in 1990 and 19 in 1989. (The improvement in the statistics is similar for those ages 19 to 25.)

“This is fantastic,” Shaver said, pointing out that only one of the seven drivers who was 18 or under was a South County high school student, while five were from other regions in the county and one was not in school.

“To have 15,000 high school students in the area and only one being involved in an alcohol-related trauma is the best news,” he said. “Mr. or Mrs. Designated Driver, however old you are, you are preventing deaths.”

Dr. Kenneth Waxman, head of the trauma unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange, said similar programs have had some impact in North County, but the effects have not been as noticeable as those in South County.

“The education process is better in the higher socioeconomic areas of South County,” Waxman said.

Iles said teen-agers in South County are becoming more aware that it is not fashionable to drink and drive. A new state law lowering the legal blood alcohol level to 0.08 last year has also contributed to reducing the number of drunk-driving arrests, she added.

One program is called Safe Rides, in which high school students operate a “taxi” service from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays during the school year.

Students such as 17-year-old Terri Prince, a senior and president of Safe Rides at San Clemente High School, sit in waiting rooms at Capistrano by the Sea Hospital in Dana Point, awaiting late-night calls from their friends who are too drunk to drive home.

“I just want to keep drunk drivers off the road,” Prince said. “You have to look out for other people because sometimes they don’t think. I get satisfaction in knowing that when someone drunk calls we can go pick them up and take them home. That’s one less drunk driver on the road.”

Dr. Jeffrey Davis, vice principal at San Clemente High, said he has seen Safe Rides change student attitudes about drinking and driving since he launched the program six years ago.

“For years, kids have been hearing from adults to ‘just say no,’ ” Davis said. “But this message is coming from the kids. Now if a kid says: ‘I got so drunk I didn’t know how I drove home,’ his friends would say: ‘What a jerk! You could have killed somebody or yourself.’ In other words, it’s no longer cool to drink and drive.”

Critics say that Safe Rides tacitly endorses drinking among teen-agers because it readily gives them permission to drink and then call for a ride.

The California Highway Patrol has stopped short of endorsing the program because of such criticism, said CHP Officer Ken Daily in San Juan Capistrano.

“But the reality is that kids are still going to drink,” Daily said. “Personally, if I had a teen-age son or daughter, I would make sure they have that Safe Rides number.”

Teen-agers who do not take advantage of Safe Rides and are arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol are routinely sentenced to the Youthful Drunk Drivers Visitation Program administered by the South Orange County Municipal Court.

The program is aimed at convincing first-time drunk drivers between the ages of 18 and 25 that they should not mix alcohol with driving. Under the program, the offenders must spend five hours in Mission Hospital’s trauma center and another five hours volunteering at Western Neuro Care Center in Tustin, an acute-care facility for patients who have been badly injured, often in accidents involving drunk driving. The youths also attend a lecture, slide presentation and an optional autopsy.

Dr. Richard Selby, of the Western Neuro Care Center and a founder of the educational program, said he conceived of this educational shock therapy after treating a police officer who was paralyzed in an accident.

After the three visits, the participants must submit to the court a 1,000-word essay about what they have learned from the program.

Many of the essayists are repentant.

“One of the most unforgettable experiences was viewing an autopsy,” wrote one participant. “Death is never so real as when it stares back at you from a gurney. Drinking never was and never will be worth it. I do not want to be responsible for affecting someone’s life or even worse, (causing) someone’s death.”

Judge Iles said her favorite letter is one that was not complimentary about the program.

“It is deeply disturbing to see the looks of horror fill the faces of so many Orange County young people,” wrote Thomas Charles Gray, who attended an autopsy with other offenders last year. “These are mostly ‘legal kids’ aged 18 to 22 of affluent background, still living with their parents. I have no doubt that some of us who were . . . less developed emotionally were probably scarred for life.”

“I do not intend to consume alcoholic beverage--in even the most minute quantity--at any time I plan to operate a motor vehicle,” Gray added.

Of the 800 people who have participated in the program, fewer than five have been rearrested for drunk driving, authorities say.

Massachusetts legislators who have studied the essays now plan to replicate the program for young offenders in their state.

“This material convinced me that Orange County has hit on a terrific solution to the drunk-driving problem,” said Massachusetts State Rep. James Marzilli in a recent letter to Iles.

Meanwhile, Shaver and Waxman said they plan to continue the battle against drunk driving by targeting drivers in the 18-to-25 age group.

“I’m encouraged by the progress in South County, but there’s no room to relax,” Waxman said. “It’s so important to let our youths, who have so much potential, know how devastating their actions can be.”