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'Every 15 Minutes' program hits home
The two-day program is graphic to the core. On Monday, upperclassmen witnessed a visually horrifying car crash site on campus. The head-on collision between intoxicated teens and unsuspecting drama students resulted in the "deaths" of three students and a teacher, and the paralysis of another student. Fire, police and ambulance sirens blared across the campus to rescue other bloodied and mangled victims. Some students were covered by white sheets and transported to the morgue in an ambulance, while others were pulled from the crash site and taken to a hospital. The impact of students being pulled from the wreckage by actual public safety workers set the stage for an upcoming memorial service, held in the gymnasium Tuesday, complete with flowers, photographs, and videos of the deceased, accompanied by mournful singing. A real casket was escorted into the gym by the "living dead," students who were pulled from class every 15 minutes throughout the day Monday to represent how frequently a person loses their life due to someone driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. "'Every 15 Minutes" is about choices," Agoura High School Principal Larry Misel said. "In life there are few second chances, few do-overs, few take-backs." Misel asked students to take the program to heart. He said lives are "snuffed out" by a moment of poor judgment, and sometimes teens make poor choices because of a "quest for popularity." A film recreating the events leading up to the students' decision to "ditch" and get drunk at a nearby house was shown to students. The driver, Christina, suffered from a head injury. She was convicted of three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter. The film includes footage from a real courtroom presided over by Judge Karen Nudell. Christina was sentenced to 12 years in prison for her crime. "This program works," Assistant Principal Chris Regan said. It is credited with changing the alcohol-related statistic from every 15 minutes to someone killed or injured every 31 minutes, he said. Michael Murrie, a professor of journalism and television at Pepperdine University, was the legal guardian of Kimberly KimbleGast, an Agoura High student who was killed in 2003 because of a collision caused by a drunk driver. Murrie gave a heartfelt talk to the students about what it means to lose a child and the pain that he and his family had to overcome. "She called herself our other daughter," Murrie said. "I don't call it an accident. . . . "It could have been prevented. There's never closure, just the passing of time." An emotional segment of the program involved the reading of letters to home from the students who had "died" during the program. Each student started their letter with "Every 15 minutes someone dies because of an alcohol related incident. . . . Today I died." One student recapped a favorite line: "Who you are is not as important as who you are going to be." She said she wasn't ready to die. Parents, in turn, used letters to speak to their children. One father said the death of a child is a parent's "worst nightmare." "I want to hold you in my arms, but now I can only hold you in my head," a mother said to her daughter. One boy wrote that he didn't die with hate or regret, but died "half complete." Misel ended the program with a plea to students not to view the program as "another hollow lesson." Many students left the gym crying. Kyle Beams said the program was "fantastic." Vanessa Vazquez, a senior who was one of the performers, vowed to never drink and drive. "I'm deeply affected," she said. |
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