THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008
Grim Reality
Students Learn of Drinking & Driving Dangers During Prom Crash Re-Enactment
On the brink of prom season, Notre Dame High School hosted a re-enactment of an alcohol-infused crash scene on Apr. 23 in the football stadium of the Niles campus. Four ambulances, a hearse, a drug-sniffing dog, and a helicopter assisted paramedics and police officers from Niles, Skokie, and Morton Grove in a sobering demonstration about the realities of drinking and driving. The elaborate display portrayed an accident caused by inebriated students driving home from prom. Notre Dame seniors Phil Bogusz, Mark Schaefer, Ross Simkins, and Sal Ursino were joined by Resurrection senior Sarah Cademartori and Regina senior Lauren Gutierrez, who were dressed in tuxedos and prom dresses, covered in fake blood and bandages.
The crowd of almost 800 enraptured students watched as rescue workers tore the roof off one of the demonstration cars and pried the doors open with the "jaws of life" to save trapped victims. The students were whisked into ambulances, a hearse, and a Flight for Life helicopter depending on the extent of their portrayed situations.
The driver was then issued and failed various sobriety tests by one of the police officers, after which he was handcuffed and arrested. A drug-sniffing dog searched the cars as officers explained the procedures to the audience. The horrific scene did not end with the lift-off of the helicopter, however. Two speakers, Joel Mains and David Emigh of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, were introduced to share their personal stories with the crowd of students. Mains described his sorrow over the death of his daughter Caitlin who was 17 years old when a drunk driver killed her in an accident in 2003.
Emigh said he had gone through life as the type of person everyone described as a great guy, involved in school, athletics, and the church until in 1998 at the age of 21 years old he made the decision to drive after a night of drinking with a friend. The next thing Emigh remembered is waking up in a hospital room handcuffed to the bed with a sheriff seated next to him in the room.
"What's going on?" Emigh asked.
The response was a nightmare, he related.
"Son, you've just killed three people," said the sheriff.
Emigh was later told that he had entered the interstate headed in the wrong direction, collided head-on with another car that resulted in the deaths of his friend Amy and two teenagers, Nick and Erica, who had been traveling in the other car.
Both Emigh and Mains urged the Notre Dame students not to drink and to never drink and drive.
Notre Dame's Assistant Principal for Student Life Tim Jarotkiewicz closed the assembly with one request of the student body: "Please be safe during prom season, and during every season."