A1A South

Prom time approaches and with it come concerns about accidents involving drunken driving and the possibility that the evening will end in a lifetime of sorrow for the surviving family members.

In order to try to get the students to think of the possible consequences before they drink and drive, Nassau County emergency services personnel staged an auto accident scene with a “body” ejected onto the “road” (the track), had the firemen and policemen on site providing first aid, a Life Flight helicopter (Trauma 1) landed on the field to whisk the most seriously injured “accident victim” away by helicopter, an ambulance took away a less seriously injured victim, the police “arrested” the drunken driver, and the coroner arrived to pick up the body, and the news was given to the “parents” of the victim.

The firefighter representative explained to the students about “the golden hour” to treat accident victims and explained that in the rural area where we live, we’re at least 45 minutes to an hour away from a hospital, and it may take a half hour or more for county emergency personnel to even get to the accident site.

The helicopter returned, landed, and the flight surgeon took the microphone and told the students that he wanted them all to pretend they did not have hands or arms. He told them to sit on their hands, their hands did not exist, for five minutes. Of course, not many could keep still without using their hands even for five minutes on a lovely spring day. He then explained that a spinal cord injury at the C6 cervical vertebra may leave them without hand control and no lower body function for life.

The police then had the quarterback throw a couple of passes back and forth to a friend on the football team, then put on glasses that mimicked the effect on vision of being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, and then had them do the same thing again. The ball didn’t go anywhere near the intended recipient that time.

The kids then were released to examine the helicopter, talk with the EMTs/firefighters and policemen, and try on the glasses.

With the prom and graduation parties that are going to be going on county wide, we will probably lose some of our young men and women to automobile accidents. Will the program help? I can only hope so. I know that the emergency services people do not want to get the call dispatching them to an automobile accident with fatalities and have to be the ones notifying the parents that their beloved child has been killed in a tragic and preventable accident.

But I also remember when I graduated from high school. I was one of the “smart” kids that knew better, but it didn’t keep me from making bad choices, perhaps because my parents did not know or care who my friends were.

Parents, know who your children’s friends are. Know the families of your children’s friends. Too many parents are afraid to provide adult supervision and want to be their child’s “friend”. The kid has plenty of friends; what he/she needs are parents.