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Wednesday, 30 April 2008 |
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Staff photo/Kay Louth
New Knoxville High School student Kiley Bertsch plays the role of a victim of a car collision as firefighters strap her to a backboard during a mock accident Tuesday morning at the Neil Armstrong Airport.
By KAY LOUTH
Staff Writer
NEW KNOXVILLE — The accident was staged but the drama was real Tuesday morning in New Knoxville.
Members of the New Knoxville Fire Department with help from several local safety and rescue departments staged a mock head-on car collision Tuesday morning for New Knoxville High School students. The New Knoxville High School student council provided the actors for the event.
“We do this every three or four years,” New Knoxville Fire Department Lt. Jerry Merges said, noting with prom time rapidly approaching, the mock crash will hopefully help deter students from drinking and driving.
Merges said the collision centered on five students, one of whom was driving drunk and struck another vehicle head on. Two of the victims wore seat belts and two were unrestrained.
“It shows the effects of drinking and driving even if you’re not the one doing the drinking,” Merges said
Merges said the events that unfolded during the mock accident occurred in real time and everything happened just as it would in a real automobile collision. With sirens screaming, a state highway patrol trooper from the Wapakoneta Post of the Ohio Highway Patrol was the first to arrive on the scene. The trooper was followed by local police and the Auglaize County Sheriff’s Office. Each unit checked on the condition of the five victims, two of whom were dead and two seriously injured at the gruesome scene. The drunk driver was not injured.
“We hope if it gets to one person, our goal is to let people understand how dangerous it (drinking and driving) can be,” Merges said. “This is what we find.”
Merges said the mock crash had been in the planning stages for a couple of months and it had to be coordinated between the New Knoxville Fire Department, Police Department, the sheriff’s office, the state patrol, the St. Marys Fire Department, Auglaize County Coroner, Miller Funeral Home, Life Flight, Neil Armstrong Airport and Mayes’ Towing, as well as the school’s student council.
Student council members who played victims included Kiley Bertsch, Janet Little, Tyler Deitsch, Tony Meyer, Zach Dillion and Austin Arnett. Bertsch and Arnett played the deceased and were actually zipped into body bags after being declared dead by the coroner. Dillion played the drunk driver and was arrested.
Rescue personnel from New Knoxville and St. Marys arrived next and began triage, determining who was the most critically injured and treating them first, or as New Knoxville Fire Department Captain Phillip Marker said “taking care of the salvageable victims first.”
Some of the victims were taken by Life Flight to Toledo to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Marker walked the students through each second of what he called the “Golden Hour,” the critical first 60 minutes during a trauma that often makes the difference between life and death.
Deitsch, who played the role of witness, said the student council had been in on the planning side for a couple of weeks. The actors also did a dry run Monday evening. This was Deitsch’s first experience with a mock crash, but a couple of New Knoxville students who helped with makeup had seen a mock crash at St. Marys.
“It makes you think,” student Anna Jaynes said.
Maria Becher echoed Jaynes’ sentiments.
“It’s kind of scary too, because you don’t want it to happen to you.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 05 May 2008 )
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