On March 3^rd Seminole High School held a Mock DUI to give the students a presentation on what can happen when someone drinks and drives. Leadership partnered with the Sanford Police Department, Sanford Fire Department and the Orlando Medical Regional Center (ORMC).

The presentation started with a speaker from the Sanford Police department explaining to the students about why they do the Mock DUI. It proceeded to a male student picking up his girlfriend and being told not to drink and drive by his girlfriend’s parents. After those two drive off the track, there is a loud boom. The tarp that is pulled off shows two cars that crashed into each other, causing a severe crash. The next stage of the presentation shows an accident between two cars. This accident occurs once prom is over. The driver who caused the crash exits the vehicle alive and intoxicated. His girlfriend did not make it out alive and the two people in the other vehicle are in critical danger. The police department goes through a DUI test with the drunk driver and arrests him. The fire department and other first responders use the Jaws of Life to take the car apart and remove the two people in the other car. One of them is taken on ambulance to a nearby hospital while the other is taken to the ORMC. The last part of the presentation was when the police officers had to talk to the parents of the dead girl and ask them to go to the morgue to identify the body.

Junior Kyle Colborne says, “I felt it wasn’t fair that the person responsible [for the accident] got to live while the other [passengers] died.”

There was also a guest speaker and she spoke about what happened to her when she ended up being in a DUI accident. She had been the one drinking and it led her to be paralyzed from the neck down.

Junior Iswarya Chigurupati says, “I think its important to learn how your decision may affect others. Even if you do not get hurt, there might be other fatalities.”

For many the presentation was emotional while for others it was just a way to get out of class. To most of the students, though, it was a lesson for viewers to use when they have the thought of drinking and driving.

Senior Ryan O’Donnell says, “I think the fact that many of my friends were actors during the Mock DUI will stick with me fore the longest. To think that its not just some random person that [a DUI] can happen to, it can happen to the people I love and even to myself.”

For photo coverage of the event, click here.