Crime & Safety

Fake Accident, Real Lessons at 'Every 15 Minutes' Program

The program, now in its 15th year locally, aims to teach students the dangers of drunk driving.

This Thursday morning at 10 a.m., a fatal traffic accident will occur on Bushard Avenue directly across from . While the blood will be fake and the victims will be actors, if Fountain Valley Police Chief Dan Llorens has his way, the impact will be very real.

Thursday will mark the department's 15th installment of the "Every 15 Minutes" program. The two-day program focuses on personal safety, drinking and driving and the potential consequences of poor decision-making. Its name was derived from statistics which show that every 15 minutes, someone in the United States dies from an alcohol-related traffic accident.

"The message is that this is a tragedy that could easily be averted by making a couple of common sense decisions," Llorens said. "Don't use alcohol or drugs, but if you do, don't get behind the wheel. It can end in tragedy and be a life-changing event."

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The life-changing potential of drunk driving will be on full display during Thursday's portion of the program, when students and faculty as well as police and fire personnel will participate in an elaborate dramatization of a fatal, alcohol-related accident, complete with victims, suspects, arrests and grieving loved ones.

"The graphic nature of it is important to get their attention," Llorens said. "What really drives it home is when they see the video of their classmates who go through a scenario where they've all died. It's the fact that this is someone that someone cares about. Both the suspect and victims have lives and families, and they're all changed for the worst."

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Friday's program features an assembly during which Llorens and others will seek to reinforce the lessons learned during Thursday's dramatization. Prior to the assembly, students "killed" during the accident will be visited in class by the Grim Reaper, taken away for the day and treated as having died. Llorens said it's a rare occasion when the message doesn't hit home -- and hard.

"What I like to do is look at faces of assembled juniors and seniors, and you can see it in their faces," he said. "When we send the message home, it does go home to them. I think they're internalizing it now. We think it's worth it enough that we've done this for 15 years."

Above all, Llorens said, the program aims to help young people understand that they're going to be faced with many tough decisions and make just as many mistakes, but that there are certain mistakes they simply can't afford to chalk up to youthful indiscretion.

"We want them to understand that we know, being young people, they're going to make mistakes in life," he said. "But there's one thing they don't need to experiment with, and that's impaired driving. They just need to take it from us: It's a really really bad idea."


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