ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER
Police officers dread delivering death notification.
It's especially difficult to notify parents whose child has died in an automobile accident, Lt. William Althoff says.
"There is no easy way to tell them. There is something different about delivering a death message to parents," Althoff said.
Students at Northside High School in Roanoke County listened quietly Wednesday as Althoff described what it's like.
The parents are almost always awake, even if it's 2 or 3 in the morning. Often, the lights are on when the police officer arrives because parents have been up, worrying because their child has not come home. They usually greet the officer at the door - and then there are the questions, for which there are no comforting answers.
The father always asks, "Did my child suffer?" Althoff said. "I always tell them no."
The mother never says anything, Althoff said. She just stands quietly behind her husband and listens.
"After I tell them, the color and life goes out of the mother's face instantly," Althoff said. "Sometimes it never returns."
The reaction is the same, whether it's in affluent Hunting Hills subdivisions in Roanoke County or in central-city neighborhoods, in Northwest Roanoke,said Althoff, who works for the Roanoke Police Department.
"You're growing up. You have a lot of opportunities," Althoff, who works for the Roanoke Police Department, told a rapt audience of Northside High School students Wednesday. "You're also reaching the age where you will have to make decisions."
Holding up a battered empty beer can, Althoff said the students will have to decide if a beer is worth the lives of four people, gesturing to four sheet-shrouded "bodies" - actually students playing the part of victims of an alcohol-related crash.
"Please don't make me have to see that look in your mother's eyes," he told the students.
The mock disaster, which was coordinated by the Roanoke Valley chapter of the Red Cross and included police, fire and rescue squads, was staged in the school's football stadium in front of 1,045 students.
Emergency personnel responded to the accident as if it were real, with screaming sirens and flashing lights. The workers removed the injured victims - student volunteers who had fake blood on their faces and arms - from the cars and put them in ambulances.
The four students who had been killed were placed on stretchers, covered with sheets and lined up in front of an emergency vehicle on the stadium running track.
The students' mood changed as the simulation proceeded.
When they arrived in the stadium, they walked past the two cars that had crashed. Many were laughing and joking with friends as they took their seats.
But the laughter stopped when a 911 emergency call tape began playing in the background and the emergency vehicles raced to the scene. The students watched quietly as the victims were removed from the cars.
They became even quieter when Althoff pulled back the sheet covering each student who had been killed in the simulation, and gave a brief biographical sketch.
For George Pelton, a Roanoke Valley car dealer whose son was killed in an accident on Interstate 581 three years ago, the mock disaster was difficult to watch and stirred memories of the call he received about his son.
He told the students that they could become victims of an alcohol-related accident even though they feel invincible.
Pelton's son was killed when a car driven by an intoxicated driver and traveling 100 mph crossed the median strip, became airborne and slammed into his son's car. Two others were killed in the crash, and a third was left paralyzed from the waist down.
"It was tough [to watch] this mock disaster," said Pelton, as he recalled his son and the call he received about his death.
Pelton said he didn't want to preach, but he urged students never to drink and drive, even after they become old enough to buy alcohol.
The students thought the mock disaster could help prevent accidents.
"It will teach students the dangers of what can happen," said Lisa Azar, a ninth-grader. "I think it will help."
Some students didn't seem to take it seriously, said senior Jennifer Sherman, but, she added, "I think it will stick in their minds anyway.''
The mock disaster program was developed by the Red Cross chapter in response to accidents and fatalities on prom night in the Roanoke Valley. The simulation has been presented before prom night at two or three Roanoke Valley schools each year. Since 1989, no alcohol-related accidents have taken place on prom night involving students from the schools that were given the presentation.
Other mock disasters this year will be at James River High in Botetourt County today at 1:30 p.m. and Patrick Henry High in Roanoke on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Eleventh-graders Kendra Curtissby CNB(left in photo above) and Courtney Barr listen as George Pelton (at
left) tells an audience of Northside High School students about the
death of his son, Geoff, three years ago in a crash caused by a
drunken driver. 2. Pelton participated in a presentation and
dramatization of an alcohol-related crash, meant to bring home to
the students the dangers of drinking and driving, especially as the
prom seasons approaches (Ran on C-1).