Grim reality
'Ghost Out' event gives life to dark statistics
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ST. IGNATIUS — One by one, every 15 minutes, students at St. Ignatius High School were singled out by the Grim Reaper and taken from their classrooms. They would return, but only as remnants of their former selves — “ghosts” walking the hallways silently.
Every year, 2 million drinking and driving crashes occur, and more than 3,000 teenagers are killed. And another 85,000 are injured; 6,500 of those seriously.
To illustrate these grim realities of drunk driving and texting while driving, four students at St. Ignatius staged a “Ghost Out” event March 15 to educate their peers about the potential dangers.
The day was spearheaded by Mission students Sara Bowers, Rose Bear Don’t Walk, Morgan Andres and JaNeal McDonald as part of their Family Career and Community Leaders of America projects they’ll present next week at the 65th State Leadership Conference in Billings.
“The four students decided months ago that students needed more information on the dangers of drinking, texting and driving,” family and consumer science teacher Terry Cable said.
According to statistics, 56 percent of teenagers involved in fatal accidents weren’t wearing their seatbelts. The leading killer of teenagers is motor vehicle crashes. Each week, 133 teenagers die because of these crashes. And just by living in Montana, residents are exposed to vehicle accidents 40 percent more than the rest of the country.
To shed light on these dark numbers, several events were staged throughout the day. Posters were placed in hallways warning of the dangers of texting, drinking and driving. The day started with a student being removed every 15 minutes from class to show that every 15 minutes a death occurs. A casket sat in the commons area with a mirror and a message, “This could be you if you drink and drive.”
There also was an assembly that began with the ghosts circling the casket and a PowerPoint presentation about the dangers of alcohol. Margene Asay from Tribal Health asked the kids to sign pledges to not drink and drive. Students even wore drunk goggles to help depict the effects of alcohol.
However, the most intense part of the day was the accident simulation, where Mission students witnessed a mock wreck scene depicting several fellow students as the dead or seriously injured passengers and the dazed drunk driver.
The scene played out as in real life, complete with emergency vehicles, fire trucks and the police working together to arrest the driver, and Life Flight air ambulance taking away a “critically injured” classmate.
“Many people both in and outside the school donated time, effort and money to pull this event off in an attempt to save a child’s life,” said Cable of the several agencies and entities that helped throughout the day.
“You don’t want the guilt that goes along with injuries and fatal accidents,” said Hugh Peterson, who works for Life Flight and is a 1975 Mission High School graduate. Peterson listed several things such as music, cell phones, eating and friends as potentially fatal distractions for teenage drivers.
“If you and your friend are in a vehicle, the chances of you getting in an accident double,” he said. “Think about what you’re doing when you’re in the vehicle … take the time to be safe.”
