Sunrise hospital event drives home sobering message to teen motorists

Priscilla Gaxiona, 17, was scared as she sat in a black SUV in the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center parking lot.

The vehicle was in rough shape. The front end had been obliterated. White airbags hung, deflated, above her lap.

Nearly 200 of her Las Vegas High School colleagues surrounded the car and watched Thursday morning, recording on their phones as a Las Vegas Fire Department heavy rescue crew systematically dismantled the car around her.

The event was a demonstration staged to underscore the dangers of impaired driving — Gaxiona was not hurt in any crash. But the brace that a paramedic put around her neck was real, and so was the equipment firefighters used to pry away and cut the doors and the roof off of the SUV.

“A bunch of glass just shattered all over,” Gaxiona said, describing the experience. “It changes everything. I’ve always known, obviously, no drinking and driving, but this happens (a lot).”

The firefighters told her they perform these kinds of extractions every day. The experience cemented the morning’s lesson in her mind, Gaxiona said.

“You could hurt not only yourself but other people around you,” she said.

It was the first time that Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center observed National Impaired Driving Prevention Month this way.

The hospital’s trauma unit teamed with public safety leaders and first responders from across the valley to deliver a sobering statistic to the teen drivers — a demographic especially vulnerable to roadway tragedies. More than 140 drivers and passengers have been involved in Nevada car crashes and fatalities in which alcohol was a contributing factor.

State Sen. Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, and Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian shared personal stories about times their vehicles were struck by a drunken driver.

Harriet Parker told the teens what it’s like to live with such a devastating loss. Her stepdaughter, 16-year-old Las Vegas High School student Jennifer Booth, was killed in 2000, along with five other teens who were working on the side of the road when an impaired driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into them.

“That day changed my life forever,” Parker said. “You have no idea how many people it affects when people get behind the wheel while they’re impaired.”

Students committed themselves to safe driving and signed their names under a banner that read, “Santa is coming to town, please don’t hit him.” They heard from police officers and firefighters and posed for selfies in emergency vehicles.

The students grinned as they watched their science teacher fumble his way through a faux field sobriety test. Las Vegas High teacher Nathan Williams was unable to walk a straight line while wearing the “fatality googles.”

The eyewear simulate changes in perception associated with tossing back a few. A Clark County School District police officer placed his keys on the floor and asked Williams to pick them up while wearing the goggles.

He missed them by nearly a foot.

“It’s a bit disorienting,” Williams said. “It changes your depth perception.”

University Medical Center will hold a similar event for high school students Friday morning.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Follow @WesJuhl on Twitter.