Simulated DWI wreck impacts FDR seniors (VIDEO)

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Members of the Roosevelt FD working to extricate the victims of a DWI wreck. Photo by Seth Butler.

STAATSBURG – The annual “Mock DWI” event for FD Roosevelt High School seniors took place on Friday and showed students the harsh realities of drinking and driving.  The event has been taking place at the high school since the mid-1990s in an attempt to encourage the soon-to-be graduates to refrain from drinking and driving.

The all-morning event starts with seniors learning what a group of classmates was doing at a party before they decided to leave in a vehicle.  While the students are inside, the “victims” spend time at the firehouse across the street where they receive a make-up treatment to simulate blood and other injuries before they go and stage in the two vehicles on the school lawn.

When the students assemble outside, they listen as a student passerby comes upon the accident and calls 911.  The dispatcher can be heard asking questions so the information can be relayed to the police, fire, and EMS agencies that are dispatched in real time to the scene.

The students could hear the sirens of the approaching first responders, led by Hyde Park Police with Roosevelt, Hyde Park, and West Clinton Fire Departments responding to the multi-victim wreck, followed by a few ambulances.

Former Dutchess County Emergency Response Director DeWitt Sagendorph explained to the students each step of techniques the firefighters were using to extricate the victims, triage them, and get them to the waiting ambulances. A medevac helicopter landed at the high school and took the most seriously injured teen to the trauma center.  The students were actively engaged in the scenario as a result of the “real-life” action unfolding before them.  Dewitt’s wife, Dee, an EMT herself, has been instrumental in developing and improving the program since its inception and was present on Friday.

Hyde Park Police Chief Robert Benson has been supportive of the program and provided members of his department on Friday to add to the reality.  “I feel this is a very impactful presentation for the kids just before prom, graduation, and many of them getting ready to go off to college,” Benson said, adding “Making a bad choice when consuming alcohol or drugs, impacts everyone in the community.”

Chief Benson is a proponent of making the simulation as real as possible.  “You can lecture someone all you want, but when they see crashed vehicles and listen to the sounds of the sirens coming, along with the crunching of cars being cut apart, it has much more of an impact when compared to lectures or simply reading about it.”

Mid-Hudson News video of Friday’s simulated wreck and response:

 




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