Every 15 Minutes is an awareness program that left its mark on seniors last week. On a normal school day, a select few seniors were taken from class, to simulate that every 15 minutes alcohol someone dies from an alcohol related collision.

This year’s event commenced on April 14 when seniors were taken from their classes. The grim reaper knocked on a classroom door, stared ominously at the entire class, and stated the name of the recently “deceased” student. Later, students returned to class in a change of clothes and ghostly face paint. For the remainder of the school day, deceased students were not permitted to speak to better simulate being dead.

Later, once all seniors were pulled from ninth period, a simulated drunk driving took place in the Amwell parking lot. This was very real as ambulances, fire trucks, police officers, and even an emergency helicopter brought realism to the staged events.

Everyone involved in the crash was a student here, as the folks from the Every 15 Minutes program aimed to show the effects that poor decisions can have on all. Nowadays, some students believe that they are invincible and that there aren’t repercussions for their actions. While some select few people thought it was a “joke” since they knew it was all fake, the following day’s concluding events left even fewer dismissing the assembly as a joke.

The next day’s events brought seniors to the auditorium to attend a mock funeral for everyone who passed away, and it was extremely emotional. Some of the students who were deceased wrote letters to their parents saying what they would’ve wanted to say if they were actually dead.

Students opened their letters with “Every 15 minutes, someone dies as the result of an alcohol related collision. Today, I died, and I never got the chance to tell you…”. The letters were poignant expressions and left a profound impact on the senior class.

The parents reciprocated by writing letters to their respective children. While this was all just a simulation, it felt eerily real. It was a very emotional time, as almost everyone was getting teary-eyed and choked up.

However, this simulation eventually gave way to speaker Kristen Wall, who is actually living through the horrors merely simulated for our school. Steven Wall, her son, was tragically killed by a drunk driver a couple years ago. She explained her journey to getting past this event; a journey that is still on going. Wall read letters from a journal she made when she was grieving, and it was absolutely gut-wrenching. She thoroughly described her struggle to grasp what had happened, and told us about how a piece of her died with her son.

Senior Katelyn Handel was one of the few people selected to take part in the program. Regarding the impact it had,”It was an amazing experience and being on the other side really helps you realize that this is real and this can happen. As emotionally draining as it was I would do it again in a heartbeat because even if we can affect just one person then we did something right,” Handel said.

This program was hopefully one that the seniors will hopefully never forget.