'Mock Prom Crash' drives a message home home

By Priscilla Wagoner, courier reporter

Alamosa – This week an annual event called “Mock Prom Crash” took place on the Alamosa High School campus. The event – as the name suggests – is staged in the week of the Alamosa High School, hoping to remind the students that drinking and driving can have harmful and sometimes fatal consequences.

Lt. Williams Squires, formerly at Alamosa Police Dept and now at the office of the Sheriff of the district of Alamosa, planned the event “from start to finish”, as he basically completed it since the first event.

With the support of Retac (Regional Emergency Trauma and Consulting Council), Squires coordinated with every agency in Alamosa, including the Sheriff Office of the Alamosa County, the police department of Alamosa, Alamosa, the Coroner's Office, Alamosa EMS and the Ministry of Fire Protection and Control.

As part of the event, Reach Air Medical Service delivered a helicopter and the trauma coordinator of the SLV Health Regional Medical Center entered to set the scene (including Squires, said, “false blood” for the children.) A car that was involved in an accident was on the set to give a complete picture of what could happen.

“We staged it in the parking lot of the high school because the children always depend on there, not only after the prom, but every weekend. You do exactly that and sometimes they drink,” said Squires.

“In this scenario, the children began to make donuts, meet a pedestrian and roll their car. Mayor Coleman agreed to be the pedestrian.

Two students agreed to play the deaths in the vehicle and actually place them in corpse bags.

“We take care of ourselves as if we were able to cope with a regular crash. The students all came out and looked at the staging while we told what was going on.

There is also a discussion after the staged event is over, where the students are informed about how the consequences cannot end with the injury and the loss of life that can happen.

“We tell you how the accident affects every child and his families,” said Squires.

Squires added how the accidents they encounter can also give first aiders PTBs.

“I almost tore myself because we had a death at the weekend and you couldn't help but think about the real incidents when they happen,” he said.

When asked how students who observed the Staging event were influenced, Squires said: “We don't talk to the children who watch, but we talk to the children who are role -playing games. They said it was scary and quite realistic.”

The goal of the annual Mock -Prom crash is to impress the students something that could save their life or life of their friends.

“We hope that the children teach it to think about what they are doing. Don't drink and don't drive. It's so easy,” said Squires.