The gymnasium fell silent as Pinckney High School’s Students Leading Students (SLS) organization performed a mock car crash in front of the student body on May 3. The audience witnessed their classmates’ raw performance and everyone took their lesson to heart.
Rainy weather conditions forced the event inside the gym instead of outside the stadium, costing the group their props of wrecked cars and drone coverage, forcing them to think fast about a solution. Unwilling to postpone the production, the students passed each other auto shop car parts through the halls. Students held up the car doors while sitting on chairs and the show went on.
“(To help students visualize their) friends in the mock car crash, we incorporated different cliques in the school and I feel like it (personalizes the situation) for people.” said Colton Ray, an SLS member whose part had him driving the second car involved in the accident, getting wounded and then extracted from the vehicle.“(It) pushes people to think about the consequences a lot more than just a theoretical situation.”
Due to prom’s early arrival this spring, the students decided the performance was a good way to remind their peers about the dangers of driving under the influence before graduation parties and summer commenced.
The assembly was made possible by a $500 mini-grant from the Livingston County Community Alliance.
The assembly was organized by Sandra Parker and Alison Cox, employees of mental health-substance abuse agency Karen Bergbower and Associates of Brighton. The two looked for interest in organizing the assembly; by March, students were involved and deciding who would be best in specific roles.
“I think the important thing to recognize (is) that these kids did this themselves.” Cox said. “This is a group of kids who, when they found out we couldn’t do it outside, didn’t pout and mope. They put their heads together and made it work. A lot of times, people who don’t work with adolescents hear ‘teenagers’ and they think (they are entitled and lazy but) this group is just amazing.”
For the event, police and EMT were set up, but the actors had no rehearsal preparation.
“It wasn’t an issue at all. We set everything up, made the most of it, and went with our guts (for) what to do next.” said James Sullins, an SLS member who portrayed a passenger who died in a crash.
With no practice beforehand, the students were pushed to believe it was a real situation in real time.
“When I was hugging (a student) when she was (playing) dead, it felt like she wasn’t there because she wasn’t responding to me,” said Julie Janda, an SLS member who portrayed a wounded walker. “You could take away somebody’s mom, sister, brother, uncle, if you end up getting in the car if you’re under the influence. Or somebody else gets in the car and it could take away your uncle, your brother, your sister, your mother. It reminds us we’re not invincible and that things can happen to us.”
The students’ performance left their classmates in tears, and the few phones that were visible in the audience were quickly disregarded. Even the students who had worked to plan the production knew this was more than just an act, that it could become their reality.
“A lot of us were affected by it, too.” SLS member Courtney Bakker said. “We knew exactly what was (going to) happen and that they were good actors, but we also could tell to a certain extent of which it was real to them.”
Prior to the production, David Eastwood spoke about the death of his daughter Ashley and her friends due to a drunk driver. He presented a student with a scholarship. Students recall the room going so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
“When (Eastwood) started reading part of her journal entries, her words was very powerful,” said SLS Secretary and student producer Halle Sullins. “The entire (feeling) we got after was something that left a mark on (us).”
