"Every 15 Minutes" Impacts GTHS Students and Staff

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) teamed up with Grand Terrace High School as they presented the “Every 15 Minutes” two-day educational event which started on Thursday, April 16. The “anti-DUI” presentation was designed to highlight the consequences of underage drinking and driving through a student-involved demonstration in front of the student body. The event, which was led by Assistant Principal Deborah Villegas, took months of planning; the title “Every 15 Minutes” reflects statistics of how often someone dies as a result of a drinking and driving incident. The dramatic presentation started at about 10 a.m. as high school students gathered to watch some of their fellow classmates re-enact a DUI collision. The collision’s focus was to “expose students to all facets of what occurs during a DUI-related collision and traumatic post-effects of these incidents.” The opportunity to have Grand Terrace’s own students involved in the re-enactment collision was key and offered more of a serious effect to the students in the audience. Senior Joshua McPherson was the "drunk driver" with junior Jailey Torres in the passenger seat of his car. Torres was taken from the scene in a helicopter which immediately took her to the hospital, however tragically pronounced "dead" at the hospital. The other victims were seniors Skylar Lewis, Jonathan Guerra and Ty Santa Cruz. Lewis was pronounced "dead" at the scene and the remaining two seniors, Santa Cruz and Guerra were left with serious injuries. According to GTHS senior and community liason for ASB Madison Sachs, "We were 'reaped' out of class by the grim reaper. After the crash we were all taken to the jail (mock), saw the process and took a tour. Next we went to the morgue and saw dead bodies. Then we went to court and saw the process which Josh would have to go through if he really did kill someone while being drunk behind the wheel. After that we went to a hotel, listened to some guest speakers, did activities, and wrote our parents farewell letters." The next day, GTHS held an assembly, which consisted of a mock funeral for the students "killed" in the previous day’s collision re-enactment. Starting at 9 a.m., the assembly highlighted the stresses and consequences the act of drinking and driving comes with; including the many people it affects. All seniors and juniors attended the mock funeral and listened to guest speakers and watched videos about the effects of drinking and driving, said Sachs. “This very emotional and heart-wrenching event illustrated to students, the potentially dangerous consequences of alcohol use, regardless of how casual they believe their use may be.” “When my students, who attended the assembly, returned to class, I could tell they had been engaged in a very emotional time. My students were deeply affected by the message of 'Every 15 Minutes' and spent some time reflecting in class with one another,” Grand Terrace High School’s ASB Director Leilani Bautista shared. “It was an amazing collaboration of our site administration team, law enforcement, fire department, and other county and public agencies in order to impact the decisions of our young people - specifically our juniors and seniors - to make wise choices to NOT drink and drive." Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.