FRANKTON — As Frankton High School students excitedly prepare for prom Friday, school officials and the sheriff’s department hope they keep one thing in mind: Drinking will impair their ability to drive.
To make sure the message was fresh in their memories, Sheriff Ron Richardson and Wendy Cook, project coordinator for a drug-free community grant, joined forces to bring them a fatal vision program Thursday, where students put on goggles representing various levels of impairment and tried to perform tasks.
Frankton senior Brandon Gore spent Thursday morning taking sobriety tests, playing cornhole and trying to give high-fives, all while wearing the fatal vision goggles, which represented various blood-alcohol levels up to 0.25 percent.
“I really enjoyed this,” Gore said. “It’s something that I’ve not experienced. It shows you what you can actually do and how hard it is when you’re drunk. It’s good to experience it because it shows how much it throws off your coordination.”
Other students attempted to drive golf carts through an obstacle course of traffic cones while wearing the goggles, weaving around with some nearly tipping the carts.
Richardson said teenage drunken driving accidents happen more often than he’d like to see.
“We’re trying to get the message out that we want these young people to be successful,” he said. “They’re our future. We just have a passion to make sure they have a healthy and safe life.”
Cook said some of the activities were kept simple, like students high-fiving each other, to show that drinking can affect all motor skills.
“If you go out and have a couple drinks, you can’t do something simple like high-five,” she said. “The whole event is just to give them a sense of how you feel when you choose to drink.”
Students also participated in a Quick Click Challenge, where teams of four sat in a sheriff’s car and then all got out and changed seats and refastened their seat belts. The event demonstrated how little time it takes to buckle up.
The sheriff’s prevention education trailer was on hand with educational information about drinking, and at the end of the activity students watched an Indiana-produced video called “Regret,” told from the perspective of a man in prison for drinking and driving and killing one of his passengers.
“We’re here to try to keep the students from making what would be a memorable moment (prom) and turning it into a tragic moment if they choose to drink,” Richardson said.
Sheriff’s deputies Brian Bell and Justin Webber helped with the program, as well as the Madison County Emergency Management Agency and Frankton school staff. The group plans to put on a similar activity in the Alexandria-Monroe school district in the coming weeks.
Gore said he trusted his classmates to make good decisions on prom night.
“Hopefully (the activity) will open a bunch of people’s eyes,” he said. “Most of these kids I don’t think would get into too much trouble.”
Contact Aleasha Sandley: 640-4805, aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com.
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Frankton students experience alcohol-impaired vision
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