Every 15 Minutes....

"Every 15 minutes someone dies from an alcohol related collision."
This alarming statistic is what sparked the beginning of the program in high schools to raise awareness about the importance of drinking and driving. It is to remind teenagers that contrary to the fact that they have their license and are now "free", they are by no means invincible.
At Rocklin, Ever 15 Minutes takes place every two years with Juniors and Seniors involved as the victims. Both my friends, Jon and Kate, among with many other people I know, have been involved with this program for several months. They constantly had meetings and needed to make videos and write obituaries. But... being "new" to Rocklin, I had no idea what this was for.
Today in English, two people got pulled out of class about 15 minutes apart. Two officers came in, said their name and handed my teacher a paper. As the student got up and left the class, our teacher read the paper which was in fact the student's obituary. Earlier in English, the video announcements aired a package like they usually do. Only today, it served as a prelude to what Every 15 Minutes was about to bring. In this package, it showed four people, Jon included, getting ready to go to prom. They were excited and taking pictures. Finally they get in the car. Alyssa, in the driver's seat, realizes that the seatbelt will crush her corsage so she decides "Oh well. I just won't wear it now... It'll be fine"
Then at the end of 3rd block we see another package. It's a party and everyone's having a good time, drinking a little, nothing too serious. Olivia gets a call and has to get home. She grabs Kate, Sami and David. David is the driver. Throughout the video you see each of them drink a little bit. Before Kate leaves, she puts down her "beer". Before David leaves, he grabs the cup and finishes it off. They leave the house.
Immediately after, there is an announcement over the P.A. system that there's been an accident.
In the middle of the ampitheater....there are two cars. They are smashed up and crashed.
You see Alyssa's body lying on the hood of this dented car. It is clear that she flew through the windshield on impact and is dead. Jon is in the driver's seat, unconcious.
The four people from the party get out of the car, generally uninjured. The girls are in tears and shook up. Olivia gets pulled away as she screams at David: "Do you see what you did?! She's dead. You killed her! You said you were alright!!! You said you felt fine!! Do you see what you did?!"
The ambulance comes. So do the firefighters with their "jaws of life". Slowly, they tear the car apart in an effort to get the 3 remaining passengers out of the car. At the end... the car is merely a shell of what it used to be.

This event really shook me up. It's different reading stories like this in the paper. It's safe to say to it's common knowledge that you don't "drink and drive". But...according to this statistic I mentioned at the beginning it isn't. There are still teenagers out there who drink and drive. Who make the decision to put their life as well as the lives of others at risk. Going into history, Erica and I saw Kate's obituary on the wall. We went to read it, but had to leave because it was too much to bear to even think that one of our good friends was even pretending to be dead. That's the whole point of Every 15 Minutes.
What if you thought was unreal suddenly became real?

Tomorrow's the assembly. It's only for juniors and seniors so hopefully people will take it more seriously than they did today. All I hope is that a handful of people realize what a serious issue this is becoming (as if there weren't enough...) even in "white bread" Rocklin.