DUI Dangers Shown as Prom Season Begins

SOUTH BELOIT— It was a grisly scene: A car with two teenage couples, dressed in prom attire, overturned when it crashed head-on with another car carrying a family of four.

Sirens screamed and lights flashed as rescue workers arrived. Six people were seriously injured, two dead.

But this was no ordinary car crash Wednesday morning.

Several feet away, 240 students sat watching from bleachers at South Beloit High School. Some laughed nervously, others stared unflinchingly as their "injured" peers were dragged out of the vehicles and carried away in stretchers.

"This had a real-life impact on me because I know and can identify with these people," senior Tyrell Tucker said.

School officials arranged the mock crash before class as a sobering reminder to students about the dangers of drinking and driving. All too often, they say, senior prom and graudation end tragically for some teens who celebrate with alcohol and then get behind the wheels.

For senior Christin Carlucci, the simulation struck close to home.

"Oh God, it scares me to death to see my friends in the re-enactment," said Carlucci, 18, whose boyfriend died in a car accident a couple of years ago.

"He was coming home from work when a drunken drink hit him. I'm still not over it."

The mock disaster, conducted by Lifeline helicopter and South Beloit fire, police and rescue personnel, wasn't just for juniors and seniors who will be attending Saturday's prom.

"We think it's important that all the kids participate," Assistant Principal Drew Potthoff said. "Even though the freshman and sophomores aren't driving, they have to make the decision whether or not to get into a car with someone drinking."

After the "accident," students filed into the gymnasium for an assembly. Ninety students had been selected to wear yellow tags bearing the message: "DUI is a decision, not an accident."

Potthoff began the assembly by asking the chosen 90 to stand.

"Two-fifths of students will be involved in a DUI accident, and these students could be the ones," Potthoff said, motioning to the standing teens. "That's a staggering statistic."

Students also listened to people whose lives had been changed forever by drunken drivers.

In 1980, Jim Gallo of Elk Grove had stopped to help a man hurt in an accident when a drunken driver hit him, throwing him 40 feet from an overpass.

"These kids have to understand that they are not invincible," said Gallo, who is paralyzed from the waist down. "They have to realize that things can happen to them even if they aren't driving."

His story made an impact on junior Michelle Camden.

"Normally people just laugh about the car crash and treat it like entertainment," said Camden, 17. "They go to their next class and forget the whole thing. But having speakers here makes it real. It makes it scary."

Randy Hundley spoke to the young audience through the eyes of the drunken driver.

Six weeks ago, he had been "having fun drinking with the boys," but instead of making it home that night, he spent two weeks in a coma.

Hundley hoped his experience would influence teenagers to choose wisely next time they might drink.

"If it only helps one student to realize the dangers of driving drunk, it will, even then, be wonderful," Hundley said. "It would mean the world to me."

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