A mock head-on crash staged at Chatelech Secondary School on Monday morning had about 600 high school students thinking harder about the consequences of dangerous driving.
The scene was set in the moments after a red Ford Escort collided with a white late-model Oldsmobile sedan. Chatelech and Sunshine Coast Alternative School students watched actors in Grade 11 and 12 drama classes at Chatelech play roles of those involved in the accident, and the shocked group of friends who'd just witnessed it.
While drunk driver Kendra Graham and her passengers emerged dazed and confused from the Ford, Sam Borthwick lay dead on the hood of the Oldsmobile while the driver and another passenger sat trapped inside the wreckage. As police, fire, and ambulance crews arrived on scene, horrified friends like Jordan Martel, Stephanie Smith and Adelie LaChance looked on.
"I thought the kids prepared really well and responded emotionally," said drama instructor Paddy McCallum.
LaChance said it was "a hard role to play" since she'd never been through a crash like that before.
The event was co-ordinated by Sechelt fire department training officer Robb Stockwell, who said the demonstration seemed to make "quite an impact" on the students. As police and ambulance crews arrived on scene, firefighters began gearing up the Jaws of Life and other rescue equipment, eventually taking off the entire left side and roof of the Oldsmobile to get at the actors inside.
"Accidents involving youth are some of the hardest scenes to attend, and if we can prevent any of them by doing this, it will be a great success," said Roger Munn, unit chief of the B.C. Ambulance Service in Sechelt.
ICBC stats show drivers aged 16 to 21 make up just eight per cent of drivers in B.C., but account for 20 per cent of crash victims.
In the afternoon, students at the high school heard about the consequences of that kind of crash from a man who'd been in one. With a wheelchair covered in stickers from punk and hardcore bands like Rise Against, Rancid and Good Riddance, 29-year-old Kevin Brooks had no problems connecting with the youth. The former skateboarder, snowboarder and self-described "reckless" adrenaline junkie has been a motivational speaker since 2003. Unlike the boarding, it didn't come naturally.
"It's like anything: the first time you're skiing or snowboarding, it's rough, but you get into it," he said. "Now I love it more than anything I've ever done - it's saved people's lives."
Speaking the dialect of the high school students, Brooks described how he came to be paralyzed from the chest down on June 24, 2000. Driving home drunk from a party with his childhood friend riding shotgun, Brooks rounded a corner in excess of 100 kilometres per hour, struck a median, flipped his Chevrolet Cavalier and came to rest in a ditch. His friend died, and he fractured two crucial vertebrae in his neck. Chatelech principal Robert Rodgers said Brooks' story made a big impact on the students. "The morning was excellent, but the students recognize it's mock," he said. "Kevin is real, and his friend who died is real." "The students were awesome; they were totally into it," added Brooks, who talks to students across B.C. during the school year. "I kind of measure success in terms of how many people come up to me afterwards."
Brooks left Chatelech with a new sticker on his chair, a sign he'd connected with the youth. He might've picked up another at the punk show he went to in Vancouver with his girlfriend that night. He hand-cycles, rides a sit-ski and does whatever it takes to stay active - but says talking to students is what drives him.
"Talking in school keeps me young - I don't lose touch with that little bit of a high school guy that's still in me," he said. "I'll always be a skateboarder and a snowboarder. And I'm pretty happy not to have to go into an office every day. I just tell my story in my own kind of way - now, I'm out there because I care, to make a difference."
Staff and students at Chatelech also practiced a 30-minute lockdown drill in the morning, to learn the procedures the school would follow should there ever be an armed shooter roaming the hallways. Rodgers said the students "are to be commended" for taking the exercise seriously.
