Fake ‘Crash’ Brings Real Emotions at La Pine HS

Every fifteen minutes, someone dies in a drunk driving crash in America, and a group of La Pine High School students want to shake their fellow classmates into realizing they’re not invincible.

With prom night right around the corner, a grisly fake crash scene can send a very real message — don’t drink and drive.

Thanks to help of various local emergency agencies, the recreated crash scene is devastating.

Though the emergency personnel are real, fortunately the blood and injuries are not.

“We’ve had a lot of issues with drinking during prom weekend, and we want this to be a mild shock to everyone,” said Sierra Langdon, a senior at La Pine. ” I want to show them that this could happen to one of our students.”

For the “accident,” she’s playing an injured passenger who has to be flown to St. Charles in Bend — and later dies at the hospital.

Her friends, smothered in face paint, have similar roles.

“I’m on life support, and my parents decide to pull me off, because there’s no point in me living,” explained freshman Hailee Gambrell-Krebs.

“I’ll be playing the drunk driver,” said Gage Ridders.

“And I fly out of the car windshield and lay on the ground dead,” said Jordan Tillery, both seniors.

Crews work to pry the others from the wreckage, while police give the driver a field sobriety test and cover the body of one student, dead on impact.

In the end, the drunk driver ends up being the only one who survives.

The group of students hope that for their friends, seeing really is believing

“It doesn’t do the same by just telling them how drunk driving can affect you, it doesn’t have any effect at all. So hopefully, this will,” Ridders said.

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens — one out of three of those is alcohol-related. And it’s that number, La Pine High students hope is sobering enough to get one message across.

“Please don’t drink on prom night,” Langdon said. “You’re endangering yourself, you’re endangering others and people you don’t even know when you get on that road.”

The students involved in the mock accident made a video and compiled pictures to show to their fellow classmates in an assembly on Thursday.

La Pine High School’s prom is Saturday night.