A Message from Code
3 Images:
Code
3 Images does not publish graphic photographs of injuries and fatalities.
As our mission statement indicates, the purpose of our work and our web site is to increase
public awareness of the critical services provided by emergency services
personnel. We are proud that our images have been used in training
workshops by medical facilities, colleges, and fire departments nationwide.
It
is for training and education that the site was established, and it
is for training and education that we offer the following feature. The
injuries and the fatality are not real. Choices is a simulated
motor vehicle collision presented by actors for the purpose of dissuading
viewers from driving under the influence of alcohol or any other drug.
Choices ...
by Angela Townsend
Onlookers at the scene of the head-on collision watched as the woman stumbled
out from behind her steering wheel and staggered toward the other vehicle. The
front passenger lay bloodied and still across its hood, ejected from the waist up
through the windshield. The woman took hold of his shoulder and shook him.
“Look what you’ve done to my car!”
He did not answer. The driver and the other passenger also lay
silent in their seats.
The sound of an approaching siren caught the woman’s attention, and she turned
as Deputy Sheriff Tim Story pulled up and stepped out of his cruiser.
“Look at my car!” she yelled.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked.
The woman looked down, as if suddenly aware of the bottle in her hand. “I only
had one beer,” she mumbled.
As an ambulance arrived on the scene, Deputy Story took the woman aside for a
field sobriety test.
The teenagers and parents who gathered in the parking lot of Valley Creek
Baptist Church Wednesday evening, August 10, watched solemnly as EMTs requested
fire rescue to extricate the victims and called for the Hardin County Coroner to
confirm one fatality.
The fire department arrived within minutes. As firefighters began working to
accomplish the rescue, the woman responsible for the collision proved unable to
complete the field sobriety test. Deputy Story handcuffed her, put her in the
back of the cruiser, and drove away as the coroner arrived on the scene.
“You’ve got to know the consequences of your actions,” Sheriff Charlie Williams
said regarding the program, entitled Choices, upon its previous
presentation at the church in 2003.
Williams was a deputy with the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office in the early 1990s
when he started a program he called Saturday Night Alive. The presentation, an
enactment of the tragic aftermath of a head-on collision caused by drunk
driving, was performed at local high schools yearly throughout the nineties
during prom week or graduation week. Teen survivors of the Carrollton bus crash
spoke at some of the events. Firefighters, junior firefighter explorers, and
high school students portrayed victims.
“I tell teens, your first drug offer is going to come from a friend, from
someone you know and trust,” Williams said. “It’s not going to come from someone
you’ve never met before. These kids are going to make their own choices. We make
sure they have accurate information.”
Choices was organized by Elizabethtown Fire Chief Mike Hulsey, who
teaches Sunday School for middle-school children and works in the teen ministry
at Valley Creek Baptist Church. The program is presented at the church every two
years. Youth groups from Emmanuel and First Christian Churches also attended
Wednesday night’s program.
As Deputy Story left with the drunk driver, firefighters covered the deceased
driver with a sheet and used the Jaws of Life and hydraulic cutters to gain
access to the victims. They removed the glass from the windshield and folded
back the roof. EMTs monitored the two passengers until they could be freed from
the vehicle, transferred onto gurneys, and loaded into the ambulance. As the
ambulance drove away, an EMT radioed control to notify dispatch that they were
en route to Hardin Memorial Hospital.
The audience watched in silence as the coroner worked with firefighters to move
the deceased driver out of the vehicle and lower her into a body bag. A hearse
drove slowly past the scene, momentarily blocking their view.
The coroner pulled the body bag around the girl and zipped it closed.
Firefighters lifted her onto a gurney. The body bag was draped with a velvet
cover and loaded into the hearse. The hearse drove slowly out of the parking
lot, and the coroner radioed dispatch that he was clearing the scene. The fire
department loaded their equipment and followed suit.
Chief Hulsey invited the audience inside to conclude the presentation.
Choices included a slide show of photographs that Chief Hulsey assembled
from a series of MVAs that occurred in Hardin County in recent years. Most
resulted in fatalities. The slides illustrated the tragic results of terrible
choices. The drivers responsible for the wrecks chose to drink and drive, to
take drugs and drive, or to drive when they were so tired that they fell asleep
at the wheel. Many opted against wearing seatbelts that could have saved their
lives.
“We presented this program so you will think before you get into that bullet
that you call a car,” Chief Hulsey told the group. “Because it can be a death
machine if you don’t do it right.”
Saturday Night Alive has a lasting effect on the participants as well as on the
teens who watch the enactments take place. Valley Creek Fire Department Sergeant
and EMT Pam Hulsey, who has worked with Saturday Night Alive since the program
began, acted as dispatch during Wednesday’s event. She recalled the prom week
presentations that were held at local high schools several years ago.
“We had a girl in a prom gown to portray the deceased victim,” Sgt. Hulsey says.
“One of the things we planned was that when the girl was being lowered into the
body bag, her corsage would fall off and land on the pavement.”
The coroner would zip the bag closed, retrieve the corsage, and lay it atop the
bag as EMTs carried the girl to the hearse.
“It still gives me chills to remember that,” she says.
Sgt. Hulsey says that while a spoken message delivered to students in schools
has some benefit, the message may often go in one ear and out the other. A
visual presentation like Choices, however, is not as easy to dismiss or
to forget. “When they actually see somebody being arrested, when they see the
blood, that really serves to get the message across.”
Sgt. Hulsey also says that using the hearse is a big factor. Deceased victims
are usually transported from a scene by ambulance to the hospital morgue, but
Saturday Night Alive uses the hearse to more graphically illustrate the
potential consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol.
After a Choices presentation in 2003, Sheriff Williams shared that he has
often seen students react to the program with tears. He said that several years
ago a Central Hardin High School counselor surveyed the students after a
Saturday Night Alive presentation for feedback. Several teens told her they had
planned to attend parties in which they would partake of alcohol to celebrate
their upcoming graduation. Saturday Night Alive convinced them to modify their
plans.
That’s what it’s all about, Chief Hulsey says as he concludes Choices.
“If we reach only one person with the message, we’ve accomplished our goal.”
Wednesday’s victims were portrayed by Kim Fugate, Kayla Pearcy, and Jonathan
Holt. Vicki Stieben portrayed the drunk driver. Sgt. Hulsey made up the victims
with a mixture of corn syrup and food coloring.
Participating agencies included the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office, Hardin
County Ambulance Service, Hardin County Coroner’s Office, and Valley Creek Fire
Department. Gold City Towing provided the wrecked cars. Dixon, Atwood, &
Trowbridge Funeral
Home provided the hearse. LifeNet was on the scene, but was dispatched to a real MVA
in Grayson County before the presentation began.
Photos by Steven and Angela Townsend
(Click photos to
enlarge)
