'What You're About to See is Your Worst Nightmare'

Students in Merrimack High School's Class of 2013 spent much of their Wednesday participating in a half-day event designed to remind them that decisions they make, especially bad ones, can have lasting, damaging effects.

This was the message passed to them repeatedly during the program, which started with a re-enactment of a fatal car crash at the tennis courts on O'Gara Drive, and continued with a short memorial service for the classmate of theirs "fatally-wounded" in the mock accident, Mia Mitchell, and a trial for the driver – Brenden Holt.

"I keep saying it's an accident, but it's not, because people make choices," Assistant Principal Peter Bergeron told students in his address at the beginning of the event.

Bergeron said it's never more evident how life can change in an instant because of a decision, than this week when so many thousands of lives have been instantly changed after Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, all because of someone's decision to cause terror on an unsuspecting crowd.

Dan Bantham, a local State Farm Agent and high school girls soccer coach, spoke before the crash scene unfolded for students. He told them he is living proof that a bad decision can change someone's life, and the lives of those around them, in an instant.

In high school, Bantham told the students, he lost four classmates, one each year, to car accidents. His senior year, that classmate was his girlfriend and prom date. She was rear-ended and her head cracked on the ceiling above her.

 A week in the hospital in a coma eventually led to the decision to pull the plug. Describing the devastation that accompanied this situation, Bantham said it's the kind of situation that stays with you forever, created at the hands of someone making a bad decision.

"What you're about to see is your worst nightmare," Bantham said. "What you're about to see is your teacher's worst nightmare. What you are about to see is most certainly your parents worst nightmare."

The story that unfolded in front of the seniors was that of a car that had crashed into a telephone pole. Mitchell, in the front passenger seat went through the windshield, landing on the gravel, unconscious, only to be pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver, Holt, is drunk, having had beers at a party before driving back to the high school to grab one of the girls cars.

In the backseat, Kelsy Mahoney and Courtney Lindsay, play passengers who are coherent and out of the car trying to help (Mahoney) and an unconscious person trapped in the car with serious injuries (Lindsay).

Upon arrival of police and fire, (both of whom volunteered their time with several other community members to make this realistic) Mitchell is pronounced dead and covered with a sheet, Holt is put through a battery of sobriety tests and arrested, Lindsay is extracted from the vehicle using the jaws of life to rip off the roof and Mahoney is taken for treatment of minor injuries. Mitchell is removed by another community volunteer, Rivet Funeral Home.

Office manager at State Farm, Karen Brimblecom-Spiewack, also participated, acting as the hysterical mom trying to see her "daughter," the deceased, at the scene.

Following the accident, students moved into a "memorial service" for Mitchell before observing court proceeds for Holt.

Police Chief Mark Doyle said after the event he hopes the message got through to kids and that if they got through to at least one person, that's good.

Doyle said Students Against Destructive Decisions, who sponsored the day's event deserves a lot of credit for this event and the amount of work they put in to it and all of the education they try to share through the year.

"You hope they take something away from this," Doyle said. "I think there is a group that we reached and there is a group that will continue to think they are invincible," Doyle said.