One person was killed and two others injured in a two-car, head-on collision Friday morning in the parking lot of Allegheny-Clarion Valley High School in Foxburg.
But fortunately, the crash was a mock accident staged by students for the benefit of other students.
“I wanted to bring this back to the school,” said senior Daden Ace, a co-coordinator of the event. “I just wanted to get the word out about distracted driving. We wanted to make sure everyone survives prom night.”
“Megan Bashline is the head of the prom committee and she was my advisor for all of this. Heather Nulph from the Clarion Hospital helped me put it together,” Ace said.
She added that she had been working on staging the event for about three months.
“We have done mock accidents for several years,” said Nulph, who is the training coordinator for Independence Health Care. “Several years ago one of our ambulances was hit head-on by an intoxicated driver. The ambulance rolled over and one of our medics was knocked out. We see too much of this so we want to make sure that these kids truly understand what this is.”
She added that “we have to make this short, sweet and easy for the kids but we want to give them a taste of what it really is like at an accident scene.”
Forest County event
PennDOT, the Forest County Sheriff’s Office and the Forest County Probation Office teamed up with various community safety partners to conduct a similar, simulated crash scenario Friday at West Forest High School.
The event, named Forest Area Safety Day, was aimed at educating the district’s students in grades 7-12 from both East and West Forest high schools about the dangers of reckless, distracted and impaired driving.
“We hear a lot from young drivers that they don’t think they will ever be involved in a crash, but this visual presentation of a tragic outcome that families experience far too often really puts things into perspective for them,” said Mark Rhoads, the county’s chief probation officer.
He added that “it really comes down to teaching these teens that it is crucial to make smart decisions every time you get into a vehicle, whether they’re behind the wheel or a passenger.”
In addition to the mock crash, the students were able to use an impaired and distracted driving simulator, hear from motivational speakers and talk with traffic safety experts.
“It’s great to have this level of support within the community so we can collectively demonstrate to the students that we are dedicated to helping them stay safe out on the roads,” Rhoads said.
(Information from the Forest County portion of this story was provided by PennDOT.)