FULLERTON : Students Get Lesson on Drunk Driving

The 1,400 students and teachers from Fullerton High School came to their stadium early Tuesday morning expecting to prepare for Saturday’s prom. Instead, they were greeted by a massive car accident.

The wreck was ringed by police officers and paramedics “responding” to the bloody accident. An emergency evacuation helicopter hovered overhead.

But the scene the students were witnessing was, in fact, just a scene. It was part of a demonstration on the pitfalls of drinking and driving organized by teachers at the school with the help of the Fullerton police and fire departments.

“It’s a shock to get them thinking about what can happen on prom night,” said Police Sgt. Glenn Deveney, who narrated the event.

School officials recruited six students to act as accident victims in a two-car crash. Four students were in one car, dressed as if on their way to the prom, and two students were in the other car, playing a drunk driver and his passenger.

Emergency personnel cut the students out of the wreckage with hydraulic shears as if they were rescuing people in a real car accident. One student assigned to play a fatality was covered with red tarp after she was lifted out of the car.

Despite the morbid nature of the demonstration, some students appeared to take it less seriously than intended. Many in the stands giggled as the student actors, made up to appear like injury victims, were lifted out of the car, and cheers greeted the arrival of each vehicle blaring an emergency siren. Some also cheered as six empty beer cans fell out of the car that was driven by the make-believe drunk driver.

But the point of the half-hour demonstration was not lost on student Amanda Lofgren, 17. “I thought it was very good and got the point across that you should go sober to prom and stay sober,” she said.