Schools
Mock Crash, Emotional Impact, Real Results
With the prom and graduation approaching, Rancho Santa Margarita students get a sobering lesson on drinking and driving. It could happen to anyone—and has.
As Johnny Stanton lay dead a few feet away, Craig Campbell recounted the night his daughter—herself a 2006 graduate of Santa Margarita Catholic—died at the hands of a drunk driver.
In front of a few hundred juniors and seniors sitting curbside on Alas de Paz, SMCHS students witnessed a mock accident in which a drunk driver snaps the life out of three of their classmates.
While Campbell spoke and Stanton lay face down and perfectly still—most of his body covered by a yellow tarp placed by emergency personnel—students sat in silence.
A generation of kids who can't keep quiet or keep off their smart phones, didn't make a sound, barely made a movement except to wipe the trickle of tears from their faces.
Campbell, a Rancho Santa Margarita firefighter whose daughter Kaydee perished in 2008 while home from college during Christmas break, had tears too.
His, though, were galvanized by reality. Stanton, the star quarterback headed to Nebraska, later pulled himself off the ground and wiped off the fake blood. Campbell's life hasn't been the same. No one's is, he told the students, when something like this happens.
"You never think it can happen to you," said Campbell, who knows better.
Every 15 Minutes Cast
- Lena Huebscher—Dead at the scene
- Chloe Lustig—Bystander
- Tommy Muzzy—Bystander
- Francesca Riggione—Ejected, pronounced dead at hospital
- Riley Smith—Drunk driver
- Tyler Strauss—Trapped victim, survives
- Kierstyn Suda—Bystander
- Lauren Streufert—Bystander
- Savannah Steele—Bystander, 9-1-1 caller
- Johnny Stanton—DOA
- Braden Domier—Bystander
- Kristen Biberacher—Bystander
"You can't prove it," said Jerry Holloway, a former policeman, city councilman and a dean of students at Santa Margarita Catholic, "but I guarantee this program has saved lives."
The "Every 15 Minutes" program—so named to account for the four deaths per hour that occurred because of drunk driving at the inception of the program i the 1990s—pops up at area high schools usually coinciding with prom season. The message is clear: Don't drink, but if you do, definitely don't drive or get in the car of someone who has been drinking.
In the mock crash, students watched Lena Huebscher taken away by the coroner, and Francesca Riggione taken to Mission Hospital where she would be pronounced dead.
They watched Riley Smith take a field sobriety test administered by CHP officer Chris Goodwin, who cuffed the young man after advising him he would be charged with at least two counts of vehicular manslaughter and a third if Riggione didn't make it.
Campbell, who said the multi-agency exercise is too real for him to watch, relayed the story of his daughter's killer. After his release from prison, he killed himself from the guilt.
Today, alcohol-related vehicle deaths and serious injuries occur about every 30 minutes. "Still unacceptable," said Steve Concialdi, founder of Friends Against Drinking and Driving and a captain/paramedic with the Orange County Fire Authority.
But clearly, programs such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Students Against Drunk Driving have had an impact.
And the impact Wednesday continued throughout the day. A makeshift cemetery on campus was filled with crosses—each bearing the name of a student pulled out of class, every 15 minutes.
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