“It was more real than I thought,†Dallas Tisue said Thursday as the fake blood still dotted his head after the mock car crash.
Wapsie Valley High School held a simulated car crash for students to raise awareness of distracted driving and the potential catastrophic impacts to friends, students and other drivers. With collaboration between the Bremer County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa State Patrol, Oran, Fairbank and Readlyn First Responders, Kaiser Corson Funeral Home and the Wapsie Valley µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø, the car crash was rather real to some viewers of the events.
“This is the first time that we had the mock car crash at Wapsie Valley for five or six years now, and we saw a need to host this at our school due to unsafe driving practices by our students, unfortunately,†µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø Advisor Carmen Willie. “The kids have put a lot of time and planning into it… They really saw the importance with this, so they wanted to go through with it.â€
Since February, organizers have been working with local responders, the funeral home and community members to put on the event that is hosted every five years at the school. Two cars were sourced following crashes of their own and were used as props with makeup done by a volunteer from a local EMS department.
The victims included Tisue, LeeAnn Oltrogge, Eric Bryan, Mae Wedemeier and Lane Shores. Oltrogge was pronounced dead at the mock scene, a scene in which Ron Oltrogge experienced from the eyes of a father.
Following the extrication of the victims from the two vehicles at the “scene,†students flooded into the auditorium for a press conference by the Bremer County Sheriff’s Office and Fairbank first responders.
“I will say that one of the most heart dropping things is every time a call comes in, it’s in this area and we hear it’s a car accident, the first thing that goes through my brain is, ‘Am I gonna know them?’†Courtney Rochette, Fairbank EMS/firefighter, said during their press conference. “If you’re too close to somebody, you have to recognize that you’re gonna be more of a hindrance than you are help and that’s a hard thing to accept.â€
The defendant, Tisue, was also processed at the Sheriff’s Office for the “death†of Oltrogge. Members of the µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø went to the station and filmed the process for students to see as a potential consequence of their glance at a Snapchat or text message.
Oltrogge’s parents, Ron and Denise, gave a mock eulogy for their daughter’s passing, a reflection on all that she would have accomplished had her life not been taken at age 18.
“You always promised us that you would be careful on the road and told other drivers to do the same. Leave the phone alone until you are parked,†Ron said. “Put the phone down, it can wait.â€
Kyser Corson Funeral Home used a casket during the mock funeral to emphasize the weight of a driver’s decision to drive while distracted, an item that elicited whispers among the crowd of students.
WV teacher Justin Davie told students about his experience being involved as a bystander to a crash that took a life in Cedar Falls.
“Dallas will be in the hallways and so will LeeAnn. Unfortunately, the reality of a number of area high schools very recently is that it wasn’t a simulation, and there are classmates that won’t be walking the halls anymore,†he said emotionally. “I had to take the young man, who was the driver of the car, away from the scene as he was standing there looking at this motorcyclist laying on the ground, and the blood was real and he was hurt very badly.â€
As prom, graduation and many other life events for students come up, Willie hopes that they take the simulation not as a theatrical experience, but a reality to a choice that could affect many lives with a split second decision.
“We just hope that our students see the importance of events like this and really reflect on their own driving practices and things of that sort,†Willie said
