Every two years, Yorba Linda High School raises awareness towards a not much spoken about subject throughout schools, especially teenagers. Drunk driving awareness. This is an issue that affects over 29 people a day according to the Centers for Disease Control Prevention. The problem with such an event is that many young people who have just received their license is the classic line, “that could never happen to me”. This is not the case.

The statistics alone prove that to be fact. Still, all around the world, though many choose not to believe it, young teenagers are driving under the influence both day and night, with and without passengers. As a school, YLHS deemed this issue necessary to address to the student body attending the school in hopes that it would steer some children straight.

On April 10, 2019, a simulation was displayed on Bastanchury, Yorba Linda in which the entire upper classmen had witnessed a full on collision between a drunk driver (Cole Smith 12) and his passengers (Michael Callahan AND BLANK). They had crashed into an oncoming car driven by Ava Kough (12) with the passengers William Fixa (11) and BLANK. The first reaction had been given by Regan Millsap (12) who had witnessed the crash and called for help. The vivid image of the crash included the passenger to the drunk driver flown through the windshield as well as the oncoming driver (Kough) dead on collision.

Post the crash, as the students began to gather around the parking lot, screams from Millsap’s voice could be heard as Fixa and BLANK had gotten out of the car in a panic state. BLANK seemed to be crying while Fixa had tried to comfort her, yet to no avail due to the traumatic experience she had just witnessed with her own eyes. All passengers had been taken out of the cars and were now being heavily interrogated by the officers set to the scene who what immediately driven down the street to address the situation.

Cole had then been pulled aside out of the car to witness the crash he had seemed to cause in complete solemn. His solitude continued while he had been taken through several drinking tests administered by the officer who had pulled him aside. In the end it had come out that Cole had in fact been driving under the influence, leading to this horrible situation in which even his closest friends did not make it out alive.

Those friends included the passenger in his vehicle, Callahan, as well as the driver of the oncoming vehicle Kough. The speakers surrounding the street had been narrating the entire situation, and in one swift sentence every student could hear the repetition of the words “the passenger is not responding” as well as “no pulse and no heartbeat” for both the victims.

After the tests had been administered, Smith was immediately handcuffed as every speaker rang with the sound of the officer stating “you are under arrest for driving under the influence”. He was taken in the back of a cop car to the court house. Almost right after, the paramedics had taken the victims, Kallahan in a gerni, to the hospital where they would receive further treatment after their situation.

This entire experience had ended abruptly after, when the police had left and the death statements had been declared. The next day the families meet for the funerals of the deaths that had been constantly done throughout the school day with 24 students dead from their class periods and many more impacted with the crash and the aftermath.