Every 15 Minutes

So as we are going into the month of May, I have to look back a year ago and think of everything that was going on. There were sure a lot of things and a lot of drama. I was senior class president, planning graduation, writing my speech, doing my senior presentation, and Every 15 Minutes.

Every 15 Minutes is a program designed to teach students about the effects of drinking and driving. During my junior year our Student Body President heard about the program and wanted to do it, but we never got around to it. So at the beginning of my senior year a girl, Sam Crane decided she wanted to do the program. She asked me to help her and I am so grateful she did.

Every 15 minutes is a two day program, the first day every 15 minutes the grim reaper entered a classroom and called out a pre-chosen student. Then a police officer read the student obituary (written by the students’ parent) to the class. The student during this time gets their face painted white, puts on a black t-shirt and goes back to class. During the rest of the day that student is not to speak to anyone, the teachers were also supposed to act like that student was not in class, because they are “living dead”.

At the end of school we had the student body watch a staged alcohol related traffic collision which was staged in our parking lot. This is the “climax” of the program I guess you can say. This is where the most people are involved. Everyone from the local wreckage yard, to the Portnuef life flight helicopter. Our local, and state police men and woman were such a great support during the 9 ½ months of planning that went into it.

During the accident we had students from the tech center filming the whole thing, they all split up and followed the helicopter to the hospital to watch the happenings of the hospital, and over to the court house/jail to watch the drunk driver be tried and thrown in jail. Since I was the only one between Sam and I that was over 18 (only people 18 and older can go into a jail) I was the one that got to go along with the drunk driver and watch that take place. It was such a strange feeling of being in the jail, it was such an eerie feeling. There was actually a man in the holding cell that our drunk driver was locked up in who tried talking to us.

After the first day, all of the students who were part of the living dead were not allowed to go home. They all had to spend the night at the school, it was a pretty fun night. My favorite officers in the world set up activities to do with the students that night. They brought in golf carts that they let the kids drive while wearing beer goggles. They brought in personal tapes of drunk drivers they had pulled over and arrested. After all the fun and games the students were then asked to write letters to their parents, each letter started off “Dear mom and dad, Every 15 Minutes someone dies in an alcohol related traffic collision, Today I died and I never got to tell you…” The parents also that night wrote letters to their students. It was a late night of high schoolers having fun, to tears and lot of thinking, to staying up until 11 editing the video footage.

The second day of the program was the memorial service. This was the most influential part of the program. Sam and I started the service by reading off the names of the student that had “died” the day before. Then the student body was shown the video of the car accident and what happened after the car scene at the hospital, courtroom, and jail. We then had students and parents who had volunteered to read their letters they had written. We also had our drunk driver stand and share his experience, and an EMT driver, and two officers speak. None of the speeches were prepared they were just the individuals’ real feelings about their experiences.

I don’t know how many people we actually taught something to and who will remember not to drink and drive. But I know that I learned so much from this program, not about drinking and driving so much but just so many life lessons that I would not change for the world. I am so grateful for my experience of planning this program with Sam, and going through all the tears and laughs with her. I can say that Every 15 Minutes might have been the most stressful thing that has happened in my life. But it was worth every obstacle that was thrown at us, such as administration problems, to having a snow day the day it was originally planned for. I could go on forever about Every 15 Minutes, everyone that helped us, but I won’t! I am so grateful I had the experience of being so involved in this program; I know that it really does change lives.