Realism punctuated the mock accident’s message of “Don’t drink and drive.” The Trigg County Rescue Squad uses the “Jaws of Life” to free the trapped passenger of a car involved in the accident, while Major Duncan Wiggins performs a field sobriety test on the “driver” of the first car.
High School Principal Chad Pruitt narrated the scene in which two vehicles were involved in a simulated collision. The first car contains students leaving a football match at the school for a party at the Lake Barkley Lodge. It collides head-on with another car at the intersection of Highways 68 and 139. The students have been drinking. The driver of the second car and a passenger in the first are killed outright. A third victim dies at the scene. The driver and lone passenger of the second car had not been drinking.
The victims of the accident were played by students and mannequins, but the personnel who responded to the incident were authentic. The Cadiz Police, the Cadiz Fire Department, Trigg County EMS, rescue squad, sheriff’s office and coroner all performed the same tasks with the same professionalism and sense of urgency they would at an actual wreck.
Realism was added with artificial wounds and props such as empty beer cans strewn about the students’ car and road. Responding officials employed all the same techniques as they would at a real scene, from the sobriety and nystagmus test performed on the inebriated driver by Cadiz Police Major Duncan Wiggins, to the rescue squad’s “Jaws of Life” cutting a victim free from the wreck.
EMS personnel treated injuries with the same equipment used in an actual accident. One student was immobilized on a rigid board, and his neck restricted to prevent spinal injuries. Despite no real blood being spilled, the ambulance teams wore latex gloves for safety, framing the authenticity and seriousness of the situation.
For the rest of this story, read this week's Cadiz Record.
