DUBLIN — Students at Bladen Community College got a sobering lesson Wednesday.
Last September, the Student Government Association at Bladen Community College began planning the school’s annual Spring Fling, and decided the theme for this year would be safety. They, along with the Public Safety Department at the college, decided on a program and demonstration warning students about the dangers of texting while driving and driving while impaired.
The program opened Wednesday in the auditorium with North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Rob Hebert, who began by countering a frequently-heard argument about the age of drinking.
“Kids say, ‘I can die for my country, or I can vote at age 18. Why can’t I drink?’,” he said. “Twenty-one is not an arbitrary number — there’s a science behind it.”
He explained that the younger someone is, the more easily they become drunk and that the brains of late teens are still developing. Citing someone he knew who was driving a car impaired, he said there may be some things worse than dying. His acquaintance ended up in a wheelchair himself, was sued for civil damages, and was facing criminal charges, all because of one moment.
The theme of making decisions was continued when David Howell, Bladen County EMS director, talked about a wreck he encountered yesterday after a car slid down a 30-foot embankment.
“When I got there, I found something I wasn’t expecting — a 6-year-old bleeding profusely from both his ears and with bilateral femur fractures,” recalled Howell. “Because of poor decisions, there is a 6-year-old boy at UNC-Chapel Hill fighting for his life. This is serious, folks. The decisions you make don’t just affect you; they affect your family, everyone else on the road, and their families.”
Bladen County Assistant DA Quinton McGee cautioned guests not to give authority over one’s own future over to people like judges and prosecutors, but to “control your own destiny and fate by making the right decisions.”
The auditorium filled with static and the sounds of emergency personnel being dispatched to a wreck at the intersection of 410 and 41 (where BCC lies), and spectators filed out to the parking lot, where a crash scene awaited them. Student Government Association officers were lying on the ground and in various positions inside of a mangled car. The sounds of sirens filled the air, and ambulances, fire trucks, and even two helicopters descended on the campus.
Firefighters and medics worked to extract students from the car, while a sheriff’s deputy administered a sobriety test and led the “inebriated” driver away in handcuffs. The mother of a student who had been ejected from the car ran onto the scene and wailed over her son, and microphones transmitted the groans and cries of the students trapped in the car. The top of the car was cut off to get to the survivors, who were led away on stretchers.
“It really felt real,” said SGA Senator Tyler Carroll, who played one of the victims. “The firefighters were really talking about what they were going to do and the medics were rushing around — I can’t imagine how scary it would be for that to genuinely be happening.”
Spectators must have picked up on it as well.
“Wow, this is really moving,” said BCC Public Information Officer Cathy Kinlaw as she was watching.
“I heard people in the stands crying, and saw them wiping away tears,” said SGA Supervisor Crystal Dowd. “I think we made our point.”
They did, at least to some students.
“It’s really eye-opening and makes you think about the long-term consequences of what you’re doing,” said BCC student Trinity Carroll.
“It’s a good reminder not to drink and drive and not to get in the car with anybody who does,” agreed Whitney Smith.
The coordination required to pull it all off was immense. The Bladen County EMS Office; Dublin and Bladenboro fire departments; Bladenboro EMS; Tar Heel Rescue; the Sheriff’s Office; Emergency Services; the Highway Patrol; Ace Towing; UNC Healthcare; and Vita-Link Air Care all worked together with BCC to bring the message to students.
“Our emergency personnel are to be commended for this,” said BCC Vice-President Jeff Kornegay.
“We have real gems in our emergency services, and we just don’t do enough for them. Folks just don’t realize how lucky we are to have them in this county,” said County Commissioner Charles Ray Peterson.
“If what we did today reaches just one person, it was all worth it,” said Corp. Bull Shaw with the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office.
Chrysta Carroll can be reached by calling 910-862-4163.
