Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 14, 1994 TAG: 9405160144
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For more than 800 Cave Spring High School students attending the non-mandatory presentation of a mock alcohol-related car crash, it was an exercise in what could be.
For Hnat, Friday was one more day of grappling with what was and could never be changed.
Her 18-year-old son, Jason Allen Bates, was the driver thrown from his car Wednesday night on Franklin Road Southwest as he was pursued by police. He had been drinking and driving, she said. Bates remained in critical condition Friday night with severe head injuries.
"If [teen-agers] only knew the decisions that have to be made if they're not going to pull through," she said.
She wanted to tell students her son's story in hope it would bring reality into the exercise. But she got there too late to address the crowd.
The presentation, sponsored by the American Red Cross, took no more than an hour. The scenario: Prom night 1994. Two cars wreck on Virginia 419 at Chaparral Drive. There are eight victims, all students at Cave Spring High School, all well-known to the student body.
The players sat motionless in the cars. Red paint had been dripped on their faces, gashes drawn on their arms and cheeks. Their faces pressed against the car windows.
Police and rescue workers arrived and worked the accident as they would in real life.
In this case, four students cannot be revived. Three of the students are seriously injured. And one is arrested for drunken driving and charged with four counts of manslaughter.
Each year, during prom season, students are deluged with the same message: Don't drink and drive. The results of the alcohol-awareness campaigns have been gradual, but are making headway among teen-agers, educators say.
The mock disasters apparently have been successful in the Roanoke Valley. Since they began in 1989, there hasn't been an alcohol-related prom night fatality at any of the schools where the program has been presented, said Thomas Stokes, American Red Cross youth coordinator.
What makes the practices so jarring is that the student body has no idea which students are participating or what will happen. The eight students also do not return for the rest of the school day after the event, to simulate what it would be like if they were really injured or killed, Stokes said.
Holding something like the mock disaster is better than not having anything at all, said Josh Blankenship, 16, a sophomore at Cave Spring High who attended Friday's assembly.
"You know, to a certain extent these things work," he said. "I don't think anyone is going to say that they're not going to party at all," but maybe they'll think twice about getting into a car if they're drunk, he said.
Public-service campaigns are not a one-shot deal when it comes to educating teen-agers about alcohol or drug abuse, said Susan Grossman, associate director for prevention at the Institute for Substance Abuse Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
"It's a whole lot more complex than one media campaign," she said. "It takes years to make an incremental change in behavior."
Grossman cites the massive commitment to persuade young people not to smoke. The campaign reached a whole generation, but it took many years, she said.
While the No. 1 killer among teen-agers nationwide remains motor-vehicle accidents, many alcohol-related, there has been a marked reduction in teen-age DUI-related fatalities in Virginia.
The campaigns are having an impact, said Department of Motor Vehicles public relations coordinator Laura Beach. According to DMV statistics, 64 Virginians between the ages of 15 and 19 died in alcohol-related auto accidents in 1990. During 1993, that number decreased to 33.
"We've been bombarding young people with the message of 'Don't Drink and Drive,''' Beach said. "The children represented by these statistics have [been] hearing that message from an early age. Many of them have been subjected to many media campaigns that talk about designating a driver."
Now, the challenge is to start talking about the dangers of underage drinking in general, she said. More teen-agers are getting designated drivers, but the problem is that the others in the car are still drinking extensively.
No Cave Spring High students have been killed this year as a result of drunken driving, a milestone for a school that has a history of teen-age fatalities.
Between 1979 and 1988, DMV workers surveyed auto accidents, many that involved alcohol, among students in the Roanoke Valley area. In all, 14 died; seven were students at Cave Spring High.
The contributing factors for Cave Spring students were that "they had a lot more disposable income to purchase alcohol, they had more access to vehicles, and many had their own cars," said Mary King, spokewoman for the DMV transportation safety program.
The deaths have decreased, say Roanoke County educators. But it will take years to make a long-term impact.
"Society tolerates the use of alcohol. They not only tolerate it, some endorse it," said Jack Liddy, supervisor of health, physical education and substance abuse for the county schools. "When you have a society where the messages in advertising are that it's an acceptable practice ... what do you think kids will think?"
On Friday, as the first students walked past the mock crash site, some laughed, while others teased their friends role-playing in the cars.
"I'm looking for some live action here," said one. "This isn't so grim as I thought," remarked another.
By the time paramedics arrived, the stadium was quiet. It was eerie, say the students who participated in the role-playing.
Christy Stephens, 17, one of those "killed" in the mock disaster, said she has lost five friends to drunken driving in two years.
"I don't want to lose anymore," she said. "I don't know if this presentation really works, but if it changes one person's mind ...''
Her choice is absolute, she said. "I don't let people drink and drive around me."
by CNB