Yes, that's probably copyright infringement on O.A.R.'s song "Shattered" but I felt it was appropriate for the day. No, this is absolutely not an April Fool's joke. I'm kind of pouring my heart out a little bit on this one, so please put on your serious pants and tone down the nuttiness for a minute.
Allow me to explain.
Every other year, my high school puts on this...scenario. It's a drinking and driving accident that has fatalities and injuries and emotional trauma. It's called "Shattered Dreams". Of course, it isn't "real" in the sense that people actually die or actually drive drunk. We don't want to get too accurate. But it felt so...realistic. Frighteningly realistic. So much so that I felt myself almost near tears.
It started out at around 9:45 in the morning where we were ushered into the big gym and shown a video put on by our broadcasting program. It began with just views around the hallway, of students milling about. Then it zoned in on the lacrosse team and how they had a big game that night. And, after the game, they were going to go to a friend's house for a party. The beer was overflowing. It was probably about 5-7 minutes of showing the party. Then it showed the groups leaving--all drunk--at different times. A group of four girls went to someone's house to talk. Another group of guys in a white SUV (four, plus one of their brothers and a friend of his) left to go to Whataburger. Then there was a crew of intensely drunk guys. There were four of them as well. They were in a black SUV.
You knew that the paths were going to cross again and that it was not going to be pretty. It was the suspense that was killing me. So in the last few seconds of the video, one of the girls, who had a boyfriend in the not-so-drunk Whataburger white car, got a phone call from the boyfriend. After small talk, the line just went dead. The screen went blank and you could hear the loud collision of cars. Then it ended.
Two policemen on motorcycles came in, sirens blaring, to the gym. A Grim Reaper (don't laugh) came in and just spun in a slow circle around the gym floor. Then he walked out with the motorcycle cops close behind.
Then we went outside to the parking lot and saw the crime scene.
At first, I was just thinking "Oh, this isn't going to be that bad. No big deal." I was so wrong. When my eyes cued in on the star lacrosse player laying face up and his arm flopped to the side, the guy who has a scholarship to Brown to play lacrosse, my stomach rolled. I don't know any of those guys in the accident really well, so it didn't hurt me as much as it could. But I was still very affected. Then I saw that there were two guys still in the white car, which was laying on it's side. One of the guys in the car I'd known since we were five years old. There were a few guys staggering out of the black car, cut up and woozy. One guy who had been in the white car had blood coming from his nose and on his shirt was just sitting with his head in his hands. There were three guys (including aforementioned lacrosse star) laying on the ground. One sat up wearily and lived.
Then the four girls came, screaming things like "Oh my God" and "What happened?". They were extremely convincing, running around the cars and checking to see who was there. That was when they began to acknowledge that the star was probably dead. One called the police. Another screamed her boyfriend's name--to which he didn't answer. He was still in the car, completely trapped. The other guys who were able to walk around were mostly just sitting or checking on their friends, begging them to answer, to wake up, to move. Something. Anything.
The sirens screamed, coming closer and flying into the parking lot.
After that, it was kind of a blur. Immediately, it was decided that the lacrosse star was dead. A white sheet was put over him and that sent the girls into crying...probably crying that was real. That was when my stomach tightened and started to hurt. The fact that I'd had a class with him last year and now he was laying in the parking lot with a white death sheet over him unnerved the heck out of me, even though I knew it was all an act. Then the EMTs and cops began to work on the guy with blood all over his face and put a brace on him. The younger brother was pronounced dead. The other guys were checked on for injuries and the girls kept crying.
The focus shifted to the guys in the car. The girl was screaming for her boyfriend as the top of the car was cut off. The boy I had known for the past fourteen years was put onto a gurney and I'm pretty sure he was the one who was Care Flighted. I might be wrong though. But then the last guy was being pulled out and he was announced dead. His girlfriend kept screaming his name through tears, saying that "He can't be dead" over and over. It was hard to hear and I didn't watch for the most part. She had sunk to her knees when he was pulled out.
At the end of it, there were five guys being tended to for minor injuries, three with sheets covering them, and two who had been taken by ambulance. The driver of the black car was arrested. Then the hearses came and put the dead onto gurneys and covered by that thick, dark blanket. The crying and screaming from the girls escalated until the boys were in the hearses and drove away. Then the girls drove off and we were dismissed to fourth period.
I can't lie--it was very intense for me. I didn't expect it to impact me so much, but I didn't have an appetite for the rest of the day, I was shaky (more so than usual), and I really didn't expect to think about it as much as I did. I was just very weirded out by thinking that people from my school had been killed.
Throughout the day, more people "died" because every 15 minutes, a teenager dies from an alcohol-related car wreck. My friends Taylor and Sarah died and I really felt those. Another friend almost cried while she was getting her white makeup on to show that she'd died.
It was surreal all day.
I know that no one actually died. I'm not that dumb or deft. But I'm an empathetic person. When those girls were crying, I felt like crying. That's just who I am. I've never felt the desire or need to drink and I don't know if I ever want to drink, even when I'm legally allowed to. But I'm hoping that this will make someone think twice about it.
And as one of the lines from the day said: the worst part about drinking and driving is the mourning after.
I love you.
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