Mock wreck; real emotion: WHS students take part in Mock Accident program
Apr 16, 2018His best friend, Tyler Zwink was the drunk driver who was cast to cause the mock accident.“This is it. This is where I am,” he said, as onlookers at his funeral listened while he read his letter. “Mom I am sorry that I didn’t get to come home tonight and that I am not going to get to go to prom or finish high school. I am sorry that I haven’t been a better son and I could have done better, tried harder, not gotten in the car.”Irvin’s mother sat in the front row, listening and crying.This was just one part of a whole life and death mock accident scenario, which was the brainchild of fire fighter J.P. Shirkey and Air Evac 70 Program Director Chad Campbell. The two then organized the massive undertaking and collaboration it would take to create a program they thought would have more of an impact on the way youths think when considering the act of drinking and driving.“It’s a program that has been done before other places. And we just thought it would be helpful here. It is going to, I think, to replace the old “drunk goggles” training,” Shirkey said. “That had just become too much of a game.”This was no game.It was as real life as it gets without having an actual loss of a student, said Zwink, who played the part of the drunk driver who caused the crash.For Zwink, who had been given the role to play just before spring break, acting the part made him realize that for someone who makes a decision to drink and drive and causes the death of another, life for them is over, even if they live through the accident.“Even if I got out of prison, whenever I got a cool job, I would think, this could have been that other person’s job. But he’s dead. And if I got married, I would be thinking, he could have gotten married. But he can’t. Because he is dead,” Zwink said.On Wednesday, the sobering scene was enacted in the Woodward High School parking lot.The accident was recreated fully, starting from the scene of the accident involving alcohol, through the entry into the vehicles using special emergency extraction e... (WoodwardNews.net)
