It's a fake crash for high school kids, but the impact hits home

"Ammon, get up. Why is he just laying there? Help Ammon, please. What are you doing? Please help him. He's not moving. Ammon? Ammon? Please, Ammon, get up."

Sydnee Hostetler's screams rang in the ears of Lakeland High School seniors who experienced a mock DUI fatality crash Friday morning.

Three were pronounced dead at the scene. First responders took one to the ambulance on a stretcher. Three were able to walk, but were covered in blood and gashes.

The drunken driver, Bryson Fisher, survived, but his life — if the crash were real — would have changed forever.

All eight individuals in the two cars were 18 or younger.

According to the Idaho Transportation Department Idaho Highway Safety Program annual evaluation, fatalities from impaired driving crashes in Idaho increased in 2019 by 26.9%. Forty-four percent of all vehicle-related fatalities resulted from impaired driving that same year, the report found.

"(Drunken driving) is just stupid and disrespectful to everyone else," senior Seth Chambers said. "You're putting everyone else's lives in danger, not just yours. You go out there and can kill other people."

Staff notified students in the senior class of the head-on collision near the Lakeland Junior High School field early Friday morning.

Parents received a report of the incident. The family of Ammon Munyer, a fatality, was visited by a chaplain Thursday night. The chaplain delivered his death notice.

A recorded tape of a 911 dispatch call played over loudspeakers, blasting the cries of a young woman reporting a drunken driving crash.

Hidden behind a shield of tarps was a scene no young person wants to see: eight of their schoolmates dripping with blood and gashes stuck in two mauled cars in a frenzy of broken glass with the smell of beer in the air.

When staff pulled away tarps hiding the scene, students stared in disbelief at the sight.

Immediately, Rathdrum Police Department and Idaho State Police cars flew into the scene, lights and sirens blaring. Behind them were Northern Lakes Fire District responders. Then an ambulance, and later, a hearse to take the three bodies to the morgue.

The performance was part of a 15-year tradition where law enforcement agencies, Lakeland, and the Substance Abuse Council organize the mock DUI class as a "teaching tool" on the dangers of speeding, drunken driving, and seat belt safety, Northern Lakes Deputy Fire Marshal and Public Information Officer Chris Larson said.

"Around the country, the time around graduation sees a high rate of fatalities," Larson said. "We tend to lose a lot of our youth to preventable accidents and fatalities. Loss of life, and what loss does to not just the family, friends, the community, schools, that's far-reaching."

Principal Trent Derrick said the performance is no longer just for shock value but to show the truth behind drunk driving accidents.

"Seeing their classmates in that situation and giving them a moment to say, 'What if?'" Derrick explained. "What would it be like?"

One of the participants, Abbey Neff, has an idea what it would be like. The daughter of a firefighter and first responder in Spokane, Neff said she had heard the horror aftermaths of DUI collisions.

"I think it is a great program because people are getting scared before it actually happens," Neff said. "We're showing them that it's scary and that it can happen to them."

Neff's mother, Jacquie, was present at the performance. She said her husband chose not to come because it was too close to home.

"He's done this so many times he couldn't even come down here and see his daughter like this," Jacquie Neff said. "This is an amazing program. I know that some of the students were just sitting there thinking that their friends would get up at some point, but others were crying. I think it is something they remember in the long term."

Serving the area for decades, Larson has seen his fair share of DUI crashes. He's felt the heartbreak of responding to accidents with the people he grew up with, their children, and friends. Larson's seen a young man from his neighborhood, who rode the bus with his daughter in high school, pass too soon.

"It's like that — they're gone, and it's just devastating. All those family members, everything that they could have been," Larson said, gazing at the students Friday morning. "The parents live with that forever. Friends are going to carry those wounds and scars from losing a friend, and the first responders don't forget, either."