Driving Home a Grim Point

Sergio Ballesteros was touched by the Grim Reaper on Wednesday, taken from his classroom as a voice boomed over the school’s public address system: “We are sad to report that Sergio Ballesteros has died in a traffic accident.”

Sergio, 17, looking sullen and downcast, left with the black-robed reaper--gone for the day and gone, metaphorically, for life.

Four times an hour throughout Wednesday, the reaper would appear in a Saugus High School classroom and lead away a student. Seventeen were taken in all.

These acts were meant to symbolize the fact that every 15 minutes someone dies in the United States from an alcohol-related traffic accident, said teacher Bill Bolde, who helped organize the event.

They were part of “Every Fifteen Minutes,” an elaborate program that aims to force teens and parents to confront the risks of driving recklessly and driving drunk.

After Sergio left, the class reacted with unease. Some students fidgeted nervously, others looked teary eyed and depressed.

“It was a tense, emotional moment for us,” teacher Ted Amorosi said. “I’m feeling pretty shaky seeing him go like that because losing someone hits home at this school,” which has lost a student in each of the past four years in a traffic accident.

The student body is still struggling to come to grips with the sudden death in January 1998 of Lauren Blaire, a popular softball player, struck and killed by a drunk driver at a Saugus intersection.

“Lauren’s death is still a soft spot at the school,” said her sister Stephanie Blaire, a junior. “But it seems like a lot of people haven’t learned from it because you hear about kids still drinking and driving. I think today is making us see up front the bad that can happen: the pain of losing someone.”

The appearance of the Grim Reaper was only part of a two-day program. At noon Wednesday hundreds of students filed onto the school’s football field to witness a staged traffic accident involving six students.

With sirens blazing, sheriff’s deputies and emergency crews rushed to the scene, and using mechanized saws and axes extricated the student victims. Two were pronounced “dead” at the scene, placed in body bags and taken to the sheriff’s station.

Three were rushed by ambulance to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, where they were pronounced “dead.”

Nearly two dozen parents volunteered to participate in the events as well, including writing mock obituaries for their children.

One set of parents went to the hospital and were asked to decide whether to donate their child’s organs.

“The scene at the hospital was really rough,” said Bolde. “Even though parents have been in on this with us for the past few months, once they were actually there, they confronted the reality and it was a tough one. They learned the same lesson the students learned today--that we all need to be more careful behind the wheel.”

School administrators and sheriff’s deputies cooperated on the awareness program in an effort to reduce the number of alcohol-related accidents in the Santa Clarita Valley, which perennially ranks among the top two sheriff’s stations for arrests of suspected drunken drivers in Los Angeles County, according to Sheriff’s Lt. Carl Deeley.

Deeley said roughly 700 to 900 people are arrested each year by Santa Clarita deputies. Although he had no statistics on juvenile drunk-driving arrests, Deeley said many of the cases involved teenagers.

“No doubt drunk driving is a problem everywhere,” he said. “But up here, for whatever reason, be it boredom or the fact that lots of our kids come from families with a little money, that can provide a car, it seems like it’s a bit of a bigger problem.”

This afternoon Every 15 Minutes concludes with a video presentation and an assembly at Saugus High on safe driving. Nicholas and Donna Blaire, parents of Lauren Blaire, will speak to the student body.