VIRGINIA BEACH -- Virginia Beach Police re-enacted a fatal accident to demonstrate to kids how alcohol-related deaths occur every fifteen minutes in the U.S.
The make-believe fatality is very graphic, with injured students, smashed cars, fire and rescue crews on the scene, and evidence of alcohol.
Green Run High School students watched as one of their own was pronounced "dead" on the scene and others were flown away by helicopter to the hospital.
"I was thinking that this is a very powerful experience for them, and a wonderful message that we are able to impart on them today, to go through their lives and be safe when they are behind the wheel," said assistant principal Heidi Trumble.
Students with faces painted white represented the young people who die every fifteen minutes in the U.S. from alcohol-related accidents.
"But then, walking through the hallways, I think it opened some peoples' eyes to realize how hard it would be to go through something like this," said Zakiy Massie, a Green Run senior.
J.M. McElligott of the Virginia Beach Police Dept. was in charge of the "Every Fifteen Minutes" program at Green Run. He wished it had been presented to the boys from Kempsville High School who were just invovled in that fatality last weekend.
"Boy, wouldn't it have been great if we had it earlier this year? Maybe it would have been the thing that would have prevented something from happening," said McElligott.
