43
Mock prom crash drives point home
New Castle High School Mock Crash
Video
Students at New Castle High School witnessed a mock accident to learn the dangers of drinking and driving.
Photo
WATCH AND LEARN: New Castle High School seniors Lynette Fish, left, Tyrell Booker and Jaylynn Gardner watch a mock accident. The message was not to let prom celebrations include drinking and getting behind the wheel. Wear seat belts, too.
Photo
PLAYING DEAD: New Castle High School senior Ta’Shan Jones was one of several students from the school to portray an accident victim during a mock crash Tuesday. The event was designed to demonstrate the dangers of drinking and driving.
The consequences of driving drunk are usually all too real.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
New Castle High School Mock Crash
Video
Students at New Castle High School witnessed a mock accident to learn the dangers of drinking and driving.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A New Castle man, a high school senior when he killed seven friends in a prom-night car accident, will spend 34 to 74 years in prison for each death.
You could almost see those seven teenagers standing behind Judge Melissa Amodie in court Tuesday — still dressed in their prom clothes, the three boys’ shirts blotched with blood.
Six of them died at the accident scene, pulled from the wreckage after the driver, who was drunk, slammed his Toyota Camry into a Nissan Pathfinder.
One of them died later at Jameson Health System’s hospital in New Castle. Emergency-room doctor Greg Hilliar had to break the bad news to his mother.
The only other accident survivor besides the driver sat in court in her wheelchair, paralyzed, and listened as Judge Amodie told the driver that it was only one bad decision he made on one night of a life that was otherwise filled with achievements in school and athletics.
She had no choice, though. She had to sentence him to the maximum amount of prison time, even though defense attorney Joseph George asked for the minimum.
The preceding paragraphs are a mock news story about a mock accident.
Those New Castle High School teens aren’t really dead. No young city man is going to prison for 74 years. Those who staged the accident, mock emergency room scene and mock trial did so because they want to keep it that way.
Two hundred-five seniors are graduating from New Castle this year. Their prom is Friday night, and there will be graduation parties and get-togethers in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys weeks after New Castle’s June 9 commencement.
The message Tuesday morning was not to let those celebrations include drinking and getting behind the wheel. Wear seat belts, too.
Jameson Health System, New Castle High School students and faculty, Noga and Medevac ambulances, New Castle police and fire departments, Lawrence County courts, the district attorney’s office, the coroner’s office, local attorneys and Liberty Mutual and Erie insurance companies came together to drive that message home.
In the auditorium, there were shocking pictures. A 19-year-old girl is horribly disfigured after an accident with a drunken driver.
A video shows a violent car crash. A man propelled from a window is run over in traffic on a four-lane highway.
“If this isn’t an incentive for you to buckle up, I don’t know what is,” said Alan Martino, deputy chief of Noga Ambulance Service.
In a parking lot behind the school, seniors watched as police, fire and ambulance crews teamed up to free their classmates from the Pathfinder and Camry, which were donated by Liberty Mutual.
Jonalyn Salzano lay stretched out on the ground beside the Camry while the emergency crews tended to the teens in the cars.
Finally, they put her on a stretcher and covered her with a blanket. Soon, her friends were covered as well — TaShan Jones, Michael Campbell, Brian Richards, Shelby Bell and Trenice Scott.
Back in the auditorium, the stage was an emergency room where Dr. Hilliar and Jameson trauma coordinator Nadine Kirkwood could not save Colin Strager Rice. His grieving mother, Jeannette Rice, did not know how she would break the news to his brothers and sisters.
Finally, the stage was a courtroom, where driver Michael Bongivengo learned his fate.
The high school’s Project Ignition Team hosted the morning, and the team was lauded for winning Best of the Best out of 15,000 school districts nationwide at the annual National Service Learning Conference in Nashville, Tenn. in March.
The team, which has 25 members, worked on projects from September to January to build awareness about safe driving.
State Farm Insurance, which sponsors the Project Ignition program and the conference along with the National Youth Leadership Council, awarded the school $10,000 for their win.
U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire of McCandless, D-4th, state Sen. Elder Vogel Jr. of Rochester, R-47th, and a representative from state Rep. Chris Sainato’s office were on hand to offer congratulations to the team.
“You’ve made a real difference,” Altmire said.
starmack@vindy.com