A hard lesson to learn
Photos by LOREN BENOIT/Press Northern Lakes firefighters remove Chris Hunt, a Lakeland High School student, from a wrecked car during a mock drunk driving crash Friday morning at Lakeland Junior High School.
Idaho State Police chaplain Anita Kronvall comforts Colleen Hall-Headley, a Lakeland High School speech teacher, as Shannon Hall-Burnside is carted away from a mock drunk driving crash Friday morning at Lakeland Junior High School.
Lakeland High School students watch Peyton Graham, Chris Hunt, Cade Felton and Jessi Hall as they take part in a mock drunk driving crash Friday morning at Lakeland Jr High School. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Lakeland High School students watch as law enforcement personnel and firefighters take part in a mock drunk driving crash Friday morning at Lakeland Jr. High School. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Lifeflight lifts off carrying a student injured in a mock drunk driving crash Friday morning at Lakeland Jr. High School. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
By DEVIN WEEKS
Staff Writer
RATHDRUM — It’s a gruesome scene: beer cans and blood on pavement, a motionless body thrust through a windshield, spine-chilling cries of shock and terror.
Even though it was a simulation, the image of a DUI collision that claimed the life of a Lakeland Senior High School teacher was burned into the minds of Lakeland’s graduating seniors Friday morning.
They quietly sat on bleachers. Some kids averted their eyes and stared at the ground, others put their arms around their friends as they witnessed the mock crash unfold on a blocked off stretch of Main Street near Lakeland Junior High.
"It was a hard thing to watch,” said senior Mattisyn Cope, 17. "It happens all the time. People go out and people drink and people overlook it and think it won’t happen to them, but that was a pretty good way of showing that it does happen."
Agencies including Northern Lakes Fire, Idaho State Police, Bell Tower Funeral Home and Life Flight Network conducted the scenario, unveiling a dramatic scene of what happens when two cars collide head-on in an alcohol-related wreck.
Student actors Peyton Graham, Chris Hunt and Jessi Hall portrayed teens trapped in the vehicle of the drunk driver, played by Cade Felton. In the passenger seat, Chris illustrated a critical injury and was airlifted by helicopter once the Jaws of Life were used to remove the top of the car.
A haunting element of the demonstration was that none of the students, even the actors, knew who would be in the other car. It was twin sisters and Lakeland teachers Shannon Hall-Burnside and Colleen Hall-Headley.
Hall-Burnside's character died at the scene.
“I think it was hard to see your teacher, someone who’s a role model in your life, to be impacted too. It’s not just our age group. It’s something that affects everyone," said Megan Rauvola, 17. "You know it’s not real, but it still hits home. The Halls are our teachers, losing them as role models is awful."
As the emergency responders went to work simulating what they would do in the real scenario, an announcer spoke over a loud speaker to share details of the lives of all involved and how those lives would now be changed forever.
Cade as the drunk driver was given a field sobriety test, which he failed, and taken into custody by ISP.
“I was just kind of thinking about all the kids in our grade and all the kids that I’ve gotten close to in the last couple years,” said William Edelblute, 17. "If something like this happened to any of them, it would be really hard. They did a really good job presenting this entire thing."