The Gift of Life is a program designed to illustrate the effects of drinking and driving to junior and senior high school students. A mock car crash and emergency situation is staged at the high school, complete with actors, emergency equipment and sound effects. Gift of Life photos on this page are from just such a presentation at Kentwood High School in May, 1999.
 

Proposal

Provide to high school students a demonstration which incorporates the consequences with DWIs (Driving While Intoxicated) and situations which emergency service providers face on a daily basis (i.e. serious injury auto accident).

Goals

• Enhance high school students' awareness of the results associated with alcohol and drug involvement.
• Increase community and student awareness of emergency service providers' concerns and involvement in drug education and prevention.
• Demonstrate to students, graphically, the involvement, operations and equipment needed to mitigate an emergency scene.
• Provide staff, students and community with the opportunity to meet and ask questions of their emergency service personnel.

Background - Scene

Picture if you will May, 1999. It's Friday night, senior prom night at school. Not that it is any special day, but hey, let's party! Many individuals will celebrate in their own way. Some may choose to include alcohol and other controlled substances in their celebrations or parties.

Imagine now, two cars with partygoers leaving a party where alcohol and drugs were used. You knew they could handle it. Unfortunately, a multiple car accident has just occurred with injuries ranging from minor injuries to death.

Emergency agencies will enter the scene and play it out exactly as if it were real (in fact, too often it is real). Triage, extrication, treatment and dealing with those under the influence will unfold before you.

Links

• Prom Poem - a message about drinking and driving from KBSG (radio station) and MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers)
• MADD On-line - Mothers Against Drunk Drivers Web site

Gift of Life Poem - by Bary Hunt, Kentridge Class of 1999.

Please Don't Drink and Drive