{"id":3658,"date":"2016-06-04T13:42:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T17:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=3658"},"modified":"2016-06-03T14:00:19","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T18:00:19","slug":"3658","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=3658","title":{"rendered":"THS Mock Car Crash Changes Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_1874\"<\/a>
Principal Marc Guarino poses with the organizer of the mock car crash, THS graduate Paulina Howard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lia Horyczun ’16
\nEE<\/em> Co-Managing Editor<\/p>\n

Last year, Paulina Howard, an EMT and a member of the THS Class of 2015, put together the first Mock Car Crash in 13 years.<\/p>\n

On May 20th, The Class of 2016 was the first to be able to experience this from a safe distance behind the yellow caution tape.<\/p>\n

Police Sergeant Falkenstein stated, \u201cIt was a great way for the student body of Trumbull High to understand the realities of what could happen during a motor vehicle accident that entails basically a driver being intoxicated or impaired from drugs or alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two cars were set up for the crash on the front grounds of THS, while actors depicted a realistic scene of the aftermath of this incident. As the injured driver was realizing what had happened, EMS, police officers, and firefighters arrived on the scene with full sirens blasting.<\/p>\n

Photos Courtesy Ralph DeLuca<\/p>\n

[slideshow_deploy id=’3681′]<\/i>
\n
\nThe actors who portrayed roles in the car crash were THS students Ian Maloney (2016), an injured driver, Tess Gorton (2017), an injured driver, Emma Gorton (2017), an injured driver, and Oliver Peters (2018), who was dead-on-arrival after going through the windshield.<\/p>\n

Ian Maloney spoke about his experience as an actor of the mock car crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t much preparation on our end,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just had to get bloodied up, for the most part, and we got our makeup done. During it, it was kind of surreal. It was strange to be in that position, especially because I\u2019m friends with the three of them. So to have just crashed into Emma and killed Oliver and injured Tess right next to me, it was weird. Obviously, I knew it was fake,\u201d he added, \u201cbut it was still a strange feeling. And then especially when Mrs. Gorton came up and was yelling at me for injuring her kid and her niece, that was a little tough too.\u201d<\/p>\n

After her unsuccessful attempt last year of the mock car crash, Howard was beyond excited with the turnout.
\n\u201cI am so pleased and thankful for all the efforts of the different departments and the school to make my event happen,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a lot of organizing and planning and perseverance over the past two years, when last year\u2019s got rained out. But I learned a lot from last year, and I am so happy with the way things played out for this year and that my dream became a reality. Fire, Police, and EMS did an amazing job managing and securing the scene. It was good training for all departments as well as making an impact. If this Mock Car Crash could make even just one person think twice about their decisions and help to save even just one life, then it was so worth it,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n

THS senior Megan Anderson said, \u201cEspecially around the end of senior year, a lot of people think they\u2019re invincible, and I get it because I feel it too. But it\u2019s important to be careful and see what could possibly go wrong.\u201d
\nIn the very opening, lots of seniors looked on with horror at the realistic mess of the results of a distracted driver. At one point, they watched as the impaired driver was tested for his coordination by walking in a straight line and failed. This resulted in the impaired driver being taken away to jail.<\/p>\n

In response to the experience, THS senior Daniel Yankura stated, \u201cI felt it was very informative and quite eye opening. I think students will be more careful driving after seeing the Mock Car Crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief of EMS Joe Laucella said, \u201cWe\u2019re grateful to be part of it. We never want to see anyone get hurt, injured, or in any kind of accident. So if we could prevent these types of incidents from occurring, that is our goal.\u201d Chief of the Trumbull Center Fire Dept. Eric Levine added, \u201cThis is not unusual to what we experience out in the field during actual extrications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Principal Marc Guarino concluded that \u201cIf we have one student who can think and perhaps behave a little bit differently, then it was worth bringing everybody out here for the day. So I thought it was a great opportunity, and our student body responded.\u201d
\nThe lesson of this mock car crash, in the words of Principal Guarino, is that \u201cthis is not a lesson on teaching you to be better drivers, this is a lesson to teach you how to make better decisions.\u201d Be safe out there and make good decisions, because you never know what can go wrong in a dangerous situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lia Horyczun ’16 EE Co-Managing Editor Last year, Paulina Howard, an EMT and a member of the THS Class of 2015, put together the first Mock Car Crash in 13 years. On…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3658"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3683,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3658\/revisions\/3683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}