Indiana SADD gives Charlestown students a taste of what alcohol can do

Clark County

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Charlestown Middle School student Seth Parker participates in the Indiana SADD Quick Click Challenge on Thursday. SADD had three activity stations at the school encouraging students to not make destructive decisions. Staff photo by C.E. Branham
Tyrah Martin maneuvers a golf cart while wearing goggles that simulate driving at double the legal alcohol limit Thursday at Charlestown Middle School. Staff photo by C.E. Branham

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September 21, 2012

Indiana SADD gives Charlestown students a taste of what alcohol can do

By JEROD CLAPP jerod.clapp@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Fri Sep 21, 2012, 07:28 PM EDT

CHARLESTOWN — At the moment of impact, Andrew Swisher said he was glad he was wearing a seat belt. Even though the crash was only at about five miles per hour, he might have gotten hurt if he wasn’t.

“If I didn’t have it on, I would have flown forward and hit the metal,” Swisher, an eighth-grader at Charlestown Middle School, said.

For the first time, the school held an event with Indiana Students Against Destructive Decisions. Swisher checked out one of the group’s interactive demonstrations, the Seat Belt Convincer. Students sit in a car seat on a ramp, buckle in and see what it feels like to be in a low-speed crash.

The group also brought a golf cart with vision-distorting goggles to simulate drunken driving and had a Quick-Click Challenge, which students get together in teams to see who can buckle in the fastest while trading seats.

Emily Losey, the school’s guidance counselor, said though these students aren’t getting ready to drive, the lessons they learn from the SADD visit could help them or people later they know now.

“Some of them have older brothers and sisters who are getting ready to drive,” Losey said. “So if they can let them or their parents know why this isn’t OK, they can kind of be that voice in the back seat.”

Geoff Grow, state director for Indiana SADD, said the Convincer is an effective tool in teaching students about how hard a car can hit, even at low speeds.

“They’re usually surprised about what a 5 mph crash feels like,” Grow said. “Most teenagers think they can stop themselves or it’s not going to hurt them. When they experience an impact like that, they understand the danger.”

Kendall Cline, another eighth-grader, tried the drunken vision obstacle course with the golf cart. With goggles designed to simulate a blood alcohol level three times Indiana’s legal limit.

“I couldn’t hardly see anything,” Cline said. “There’s only about eight cones, but it looked like there were 50.”

Josh Rijos, another eighth-grader, tried the course, too. He ran over a cone and dragged it about 10 feet.

But he said he came away from the drive with a lesson learned — he won’t let a drunken driver take him home from anything.

“I’d call a cab or my mom,” Rijos said. “I don’t want to get in a crash and hurt myself or worry my friends because I made a bad decision.”

Losey said she wants to start a middle school chapter of SADD on campus and raise awareness. She said hopefully, planting the seed now will serve them well in the future.