Hospital offers student drivers a dose of reality

"Please, do not let this be your parents' last memory of you," Kathy Sleeman pleaded with a group of students huddled around the autopsy table Friday in the Samaritan Medical Center morgue.

Mrs. Sleeman is a clinical leader at Samaritan, where each year students in Watertown High School's driver education class spend a day in the "Let's Not Meet by Accident" program.

Two groups of 30 students attended the program, which is designed to show the new drivers consequences to actions such as drinking and driving or being distracted while behind the wheel.

"The decisions you make affect your life now and will impact you for the rest of your life," Trooper Jeffrey G. Stevenson, school resource officer at the South Jefferson Central School District, told the students. "Your actions very much affect everyone around you — your whole family."

He asked a student to send a text message to another student in the room. He told her what to type and timed how long it took.

"That was seven to eight seconds that your eyes would have been off the road," Mr. Stevenson said. "You could drive the length of a football field in that time. That's a long way to go without looking at the road."

He also gave the students examples of teens who were killed or maimed by drunk, distracted or dangerous driving, including the four people killed in May in an accident in Champion.

The students then split into two groups and took turns touring several areas of the hospital.

One of the stops was the ambulance bay, where David C. Sherman, general manager of Guilfoyle Ambulance Service, and nurse Karen Jobson talked about the steps taken by paramedics at an accident scene and doctors and nurses in the emergency room.

Driver education instructor Michael J. Hall has taken his class to the program every year since it began in 2006.

"You can tell them these things in the classroom, but it doesn't mean as much as bringing them here," he said. "It never gets old, because it's real life."

In the morgue, Mrs. Sleeman walked the students through the steps of coming through and completing an autopsy.

"This, right here, is where your parents will come to ID you," she said as students with dropped jaws gasped and looked a little pale.

The program ends with a trauma simulation in the emergency room.

Two trauma nurses picked William Simmons Jr., 16, as their student volunteer.

They went through the ABCs — airway, breathing and circulation — of trauma care, took his vital signs and showed where all of the tubes and wires and needles go when a patient comes in for care.

Then, the nurses pulled a white sheet over William and said, "We hope we never have to see you like this."

"It was really scary," William said. "It was like I was above looking down at myself. I know I definitely never want to be in a situation like that."

Many of the students said the program will make them think twice about the decisions they make when they get behind the wheel.

"It was really eye-opening," said Jake A. Rutigliano, 16. "It really puts things in perspective and makes you think."

Jill A. Newman, program coordinator, said she's trying to get more schools to sign up for the program so they can help more kids see the consequences of their actions.

"A lot of kids think we're trying to scare them with this stuff," Ms. Newman said. "But we're not. This is reality. If we can teach them one thing or save one life because of this, it's worth it."