Every 15 Minutes, a simulated event designed to show high school juniors and seniors the real-life risks of impaired and distracted driving, will take place at Thomas Stone High tomorrow morning.

 

Juniors and seniors will gather to watch a mock accident staged in the front parking lot. The simulated accident will have emergency medical personnel, Charles County Sheriff’s officers and a Maryland State Police helicopter landing on site as part of the program in the morning.

 

The Every 15 Minutes program includes a staged vehicle crash during which a high school student driver “causes” an accident due to impaired driving that leads to their arrest and results in the death of at least one person and multiple injuries of other passengers. A call for assistance may go out over police scanners, and a parent of one of the crash “victims” may be on site and heard in distress in the background. This is part of the program.

 

The program gets its name — Every 15 Minutes — as student volunteers are pulled from class in 15-minute increments, and return having their faces painted white, wearing a coroner's tag and black Every 15 Minutes T-shirt, and refraining from speaking or interacting with other students for the remainder of the school day. The students represent those injured or killed in an accident every 15 minutes due to impaired or distracted driving.

 

On Thursday afternoon, the students who participated in the program will take part in a mock trial of the driver before going on an overnight retreat to Camp Merrick in Nanjemoy where they will spend time with support staff and counselors from Thomas Stone to discuss the day’s events. On Friday morning, the students will return to school and juniors and seniors will meet for a brief assembly to go over the Every 15 Minute program and its impact.

 

This program is hosted annually, when possible, at a CCPS high school during prom season. Thomas Stone will hold its prom on Friday, April 19.