Grim lesson shows teens realities of drunken driving

SANDY — It was a normal sunny Thursday morning for Meredith Fall, a junior at Juan Diego Catholic High School. But at 9:09 her day changed. From then on she was a "ghost" in the halls of the school.

White-faced and silent, no one spoke to Fall or more than a dozen other students who were plucked by the school's Grim Reaper throughout the day to represent sobering fatality statistics linked to drunken driving.

Last week student leaders of the school's chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions wanted students to see the destructive effects of drunken driving.

"We've heard the same thing over and over about drinking and driving, but having the visual effect will hit closer to home," said Christine Petrone, faculty adviser for SADD.

According to SADD statistics, every 32 minutes of every day, a life is lost as a result of an impaired-driving crash. Juan Diego junior Niki Sanich acted as the Grim Reaper, entering classrooms every 32 minutes and pulling a student out, painting their face white and dressing them in black.

At the end of the day the victims were lined up side by side, marked by gravestones crafted by the students.

"There is so much attention given to school shootings, and yet more kids are killed by drunk driving each year — this gives kids a sense of the volume of incidents that there are," said Molly Dumas, director of development at Juan Diego.

Petrone said the demonstration is much more powerful than faculty members, school leaders or even parents talking to students about drinking and driving.

"This empowers kids to reach out to their own peers, and that has a powerful effect," Petrone said. "They expect parents or leaders to say this, but they are not expecting it from a student — it's all about empowering students."

She also said that the event will stay fresh in the minds of students at the school.

"We hope that when they are faced with these temptations to drive in an impaired situation, they will remember today," she said.

The Juan Diego chapter of SADD is one of only about 15 chapters in Utah.

Originally, the mission of SADD was to help young people say no to drinking and driving. But the goals have expanded, and the organization also takes aim at preventing destructive decisions like underage drinking, other drug use, impaired driving, teen violence and teen depression and suicide.

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