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"Every 15 Minutes" offers crash course in drunken driving

While sitting in his Laboratory office on a recent Wednesday, Steve Balke received the phone call every parent dreads.

A California Highway Patrol officer was waiting to speak with him about his daughter in the West Gate badge office. Accompanied by his supervisor Glenn Cox, Balke arrived a few minutes later and was ushered, with CHP Officer Steve Creel, into the privacy of an office. Creel somberly informed him there had been an accident….

Though Balke was a willing participant in this exercise, the news that his daughter had been killed in a simulated drunken driving accident in Modesto was "surprisingly nerve racking." As the officer’s words sank in, Balke felt momentarily disoriented. "It took a second before I could tell myself ‘this isn’t real.’"

Balke, of the Lab’s Physical and Technical Security Division, and his daughter Melissa, a senior at Beyer High School in Modesto, were players in the "Every 15 Minutes Program" — a drunken-driving accident simulation exercise involving parents, students, school authorities, emergency responders as well as officials from the local courts and the coroner’s office. The goal of the multi-day simulation is to dramatize the full, often unseen, consequences of alcohol-related accidents on families, friends and the community.

The event begins with a simulated collision at a high school campus. Police, fire fighters and medics — sometimes even a Medivac helicopter – respond as they would in a real crash. The injured are treated, the dead removed by the coroner and suspects arrested, booked and arraigned in court. Those who died, return to school as "living dead" in whiteface and black attire, but do not speak or interact with their fellow students, teachers or administrators.

Accident victims do not return home, but attend an overnight retreat. They write letters to their parents and parents, in return, write to their lost children. "Afterwards students read farewell letters to parents and parents read letters to their kids," Balke said. "It is very emotional. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place."

While Balke says he has had little to worry about with his daughter, the program opened "new avenues" for discussion. "Most parents know kids drink. It’s a part of growing up," he said. "This program is a great opportunity to help us realize that just because you are mindful doesn’t mean something like this can’t happen to you."

Melissa confessed to her father that she now "understands why I worry, why I call and why I want to know where she is."

"This has eased some of the tension between us. The letters we wrote opened discussion of other issues," Balke said. "You realize that if you don’t talk now, you may not be able to later."

Creel credits the program with contributing to a decline in alcohol-related fatalities in the 1990s. However, he notes that there has been an increase in drunken-driving fatalities in recent years.

"This is a very good awareness program," Balke said. "If it changes the thinking of even one kid, the program has done its job."

Balke’s participation in the program was facilitated by cooperation between the San Joaquin and local CHP and the Laboratory’s Security Organization.

The program gets its name from a gruesome national statistic; every 15 minutes someone dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

For more information, go to the Web.

 

April 4, 2008

Contact

Don Johnston
[email protected]