ASHLAND — Hundreds of Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center students watched a flurry of first responders work on a mock fatal crash caused by distracted driving Thursday afternoon.
In this imaginary scenario, seniors Grace Cover, Maddie Kline, and Kylie Longden were on their way to a high school football game when Kline unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned forward to take a picture for BeReal, a social media app where users have two minutes to take a picture of whatever they’re doing every day. The driver, Cover, is distracted by this and hits a tree.
“A lot of pictures on BeReal, you can tell that people are taking them while they’re driving and so we just thought that was a perfect opportunity to include that,” Longden said.
The demonstration begins after this imaginary crash. A fourth student, Brynn Bailey, witnesses the crash and calls 911. When first responders arrive, they find Longden unconscious, Kline dead on the hood of the car, and Cover conscious with minor injuries.
Students then got to see firefighters and medics cut a car door off to get the injured Longden out of the vehicle and onto a stretcher and watch Kline get put into a body bag and taken away by Fickes Funeral Home.
Afterwards the four actors, still covered in fake blood, recounted how scary it was to be in even a fake car crash.
“It felt so real to be in that body bag, like I didn’t realize how real it felt,” Kline said.
“Getting all of that done like when I was getting cut out of the car getting pulled out of the car, it was honestly like a really terrifying feeling,” Longden said.
Students in teacher Amanda Young’s health tech class spent weeks coordinating with the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office, Hayesville Fire Department, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Ashland County Coroner’s Office, Fickes Funeral Home, and Gibbs Towing to set up the mock crash, Young said.
After the mock crash, ACWHCC principal Rick Brindley made an emotional plea to the students to stay safe and avoid distracted or impaired driving.
“No text, no phone call is that important you can’t pull over to the side,” Brindley said. “Thirty-five years I’ve been in education, and I’ve buried 16 kids. I don’t want to bury any more, alright? I don’t like going through that.
“And if this helps a couple people not doing those things and staying away from that type of driving then we did a good job,” he said.
Cover, Longden, Bailey, and Kline agreed.
“Even if we can just save one person’s life after showing them this, that’s better than nothing. It’s enough for us,” Longden said.
