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May 2005
Vol. 34
Special Shattered Dreams EditionSpecial Shattered Dreams EditionSpecial Shattered Dreams EditionSpecial Shattered Dreams EditionSpecial Shattered Dreams Edition Hilary Francis
Co-editor
Thump thump....thump
thump...thump...a heart beat.
Beeeeeeep...a flat line.
Another student is pulled out
of class by the Grim Reaper.
The somber students return
to class with their faces
painted white acting as though
they are no longer living--they
may not talk or smile-- they
are The Living Dead.
This was repeated 16 moretimes throughout the day sym-
bolizing the fact that a person
is killed or injured as a result
of a drunk driving accident ev-
ery 20 minutes in Texas.
Obituaries were placed in
the Blue Commons as each
BHS student was “killed.”
Crosses were hammered
into the ground in front and
around the school--another
symbol of their passing on.
As each student was re-
moved from class and “killed”their parents were notified of
their death.
“Playing dead in all my
classes wasn’t hard, but real-
izing that my family was be-
ing notified of my ‘death’ put
things into perspective for
me,” said junior Amanda
Smith.
At two o’clock a 911 call
was broadcast across the in-tercom. A frantic female ex-
plained the situation of a two
car accident.
“Even after all of the mock
events of the day, the 911 call
was extremely realistic and
somewhat eerie,” said fresh-
man Travis Whitley.
Students filed out to the
“crime scene” on Campus
Drive between Silver and Vi-
king Stadium where two cars
were staged as if they had just
collided.
Bryan police and fire de-
partment personnel quickly re-
sponded to the mock crime
scene.
The drunk driver, Travis
Komar, and his passengers,
Matt Payne and John Diaz,
were relatively unharmed, suf-
fering only minor scrapes and
bruises.
Komar and Payne were ar-
rested for DWIs and were
taken to the police station
while Diaz was issued a cita-
tion.
“I still felt guilty even thoughI knew it wasn’t real and I
only received a citation. It
made me realize that I
shouldn’t even be in a car
with someone who had been
drinking whether or not they
are the driver or just another
passenger like me,” said se-
nior John Diaz.
The other people involved,
however, were not as lucky.
Passengers of the hit vehicle
included Audra Smith, Tara
Maliska, and Darlene
Crawford with driver Hannah
Sledge.
While Bryan PD placed the
offenders in the patrol car,
paramedics and firefighters
worked to remove the four
girls from the vehicle.
Using the Jaws of Life, a
machine that cut through the
car doors and roof, they re-
moved passengers Smith and
Crawford. Both were rushed
away in an ambulance.Maliska, the passenger be-
hind the drivers’ seat, was
lifeflighted to St. Joseph’s in
critical condition but “died”
while in the care of the hospi-
tal staff.
Sledge, the driver, was pro-
nounced dead at the scene
and taken to Calloway Jones
Funeral Home in a white
hearse.
“Watching Hannah, my
close friend, being covered
with a sheet and put in a
hearse was almost too realis-
tic,” said junior Tiffany Drozd.
“It made me think about what
life would be like without my
friends and how tragic these
accidents are.”
Parents of these students
were notified after the wreck.
“I wasn’t prepared for the
officers or their message.
When they finally arrived, I
thought I could handle the
news. I had already been told, but was immediately emo-
tional,” said Ms. Sledge.
The parents all felt some
emotion as the idea of their
child being gone forever be-
cause of a bad decision went
through their minds.
--continued on pg 3Senior Bailey Idom hammers her cross in to symoblize
her death during the Shattered Dreams program.
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Special Edition • The Norseman
Volume 34, Special Edition
The Norseman is a publication produced by the Advanced Journalism
Newspaper Production class at Bryan High School. The opinions expressed
are those of the author and may not represent the opinion of the faculty,
staff or administrators of Bryan High School.
Signed letters to the editor are welcome and may be delivered to Rm.
6160 or the Blue Campus Office.
Member-UIL Interscholastic League Press Conference (ILPC)
Winner of the ILPC Award of Distinguished Merit
1998-99, 1999-2000 Silver Star, 2001-2002.
Co-Editors
Hilary Francis & Jennifer Haynie
Staff writers
Blair Whitely
Adviser
Rebecca Dominy
continued from pg 1
“I can’t imagine the feelings parents must actually feel
when receiving that kind of
heartbreaking news,” Sledge
said
The 31 students involved in
the Shattered Dreams pro-
gram spent the night at Mes-
siah Ranch where they talked
about their emotions from the
day and participated in lead-
ership activities.“All students opened up and
exposed themselves without
being afraid during the re-
treat,” said Marc McFeron, a
fire inspector and public edu-
cator who worked with the
teenagers.
Each student and parent
separately wrote a letter shar-
ing their heartfelt desires tosee one another again.
Mrs. Allmon, Drew
Allmon’s mother, said that she
was impacted far more than
she believed she would be.
Although she knew it was a
mock situation, she wept
when told her son had been
“killed.”
An assembly was held in
the Viking Gym the followingmorning where speakers de-
scribed their own tales of
loved ones killed or injured by
a drunk driver.
A slide show produced by
the BHS Media Department
captured the previous day’s
events.
Jennifer Haynie
Co-editor
Mrs. McGill is the mother of an 18
year old A&M Consolidated High
School 2002 graduate, and on the nightof September 22, 2002, Matthew
McGill was tragically killed because
someone made the decision to drink
and drive.
On the morning of April 28, 2005 all
Bryan High junior and senior students
gathered along with BHS faculty for
“Seeing the clips of high
school students having funand then suddenly changing to
the crash scene made me think
about how precious life is.
There’s no reason for it to end
so quickly due to a stupid
‘night of fun’,” said junior Blair
Whitley.
All who attended, partici-
pated, or merely observed
were truly touched by the
Shattered Dreams program.“We believe that if just one
student was effected by the
Shattered Dreams program,
then our efforts were worth
it,” said advisor Mrs. Willett.
“We just hope all students took
the program seriously and will
learn from it.”
the Shattered Dreams conclusion at
an assembly held in the Viking Gym.
Mrs. McGill, along with other guest
speakers, shared with Bryan High her
experience in losing a loved one to analcohol related accident.
Matt and his fiancee were on their
way home from a grocery store when
they were hit head-on by a drunk
driver.
After a frantic phone call from
Matt’s fiancee, Mrs. McGill, only min-
utes before the ambulances, rushed to
the scene which was only one and a
half miles from their home.
“Matt was in the drivers seat splat-
tered with dust, dirt, and broken glasslooking as if he was asleep,” said Mrs.
McGill
Matt was taken to College Station
Medical Center to receive care for his
injuries, which included a ruptured
spleen, a broken left arm, and severe
brain trauma.
Mrs. McGill and her family anx-
iously waited in a private waiting area
for nearly two days until the neurolo-gist who had done brain surgery on
Matt came to deliver the news that
Matt’s pituitary gland was shutting
down.
This meant that all of the organs in
Matt’s body would slowly start to shut
down one by one.
The family was advised to say their
final good-byes and Mrs. McGill had
to walk away leaving her only son
behind.Shortly after, the hospital began the
process of organ retrieval because the
family wanted to donate Matt’s organs.
The family is still struggling every-
day with the thought that they will
never get to see Matt.
“I would have given anything, any-
thing in the world, to have awakened
to discover that this had all been a bad
dream,” said Mrs. McGill.The family is now members of a
organization, MADD (Mothers
Against Drunk Driving ), that no fam-
ily ever wants to be a part of.
Mrs. McGill will never get the op-
portunity, every mother believes they
will have, to see their child grow and
mature to be an adult.
The decision one man made to drink
and drive did not just affect him butaffected someone else and their whole
family.
The man who hit Matt has never
spent a day in jail and is now hiding
from police, avoiding the punishment
he knows he would serve.
Matt’s family chose to dedicate time
to the Shattered Dreams program to
spread their story and let others know
this could happen to anyone at any-
time.Mrs. McGill has visited five differ-
ent schools since her son’s death to
encourage others not to make the mis-
take of drinking and driving.
The Reality of Drinking and Driving, the Effects on a Family
Shattered Dreams...
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The Norseman • Special Edition
Intoxication Rates Among Teens Killed in Car Crashes
Drinking and Driving: A Fatal CombinationThe National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) pro-
duced a list of statistics on drunk driv-ing for the year 2000.
Alcohol involvement remains the
leading factor in motor vehicle deaths
in the United States.
•Alcohol was involved in 40% of
fatal crashes.
•An average of one alcohol related
fatality occurs every 32 minutes.
•An average of one person is injuredapproximately every 2 minutes in a
crash where alcohol is present.
•About 3 in every 10 Americans
will be involved in an alcohol related
crash at some time in their lives.
•Traffic crashes are this country’s
greatest single cause of death for ev-
ery age from 6 to 33 and almost half
of these fatalities are related to drunk
driving.
•White males, ages 21-34 consti-tute the largest percentage of drunk
(or impaired) drivers in all fatal crashes.
•Young people between the ages of
12 and 20 accounted for 11.4% of all
U.S. alcohol consumption.
•More than 2,300 anti-drunk driv-
ing laws have been passed since 1980.
•25% of Texas seniors admitted to
have driven with a bit too much to drink
at least once during the past schoolyear.
•Children who have begin drinking
alcohol before the age of 15 are four
times more likely to develope alcohol-
ism in adulthood than children who do
not drink until the legal age of 21.
•Approximately 43 of our fellow citi-
zens are lost each day, 305 each week,
and 1309 each month because of al-
cohol-related accidents. That’s one life
lost every 33 minutes.•It’s estimated that every 15 min-
utes a young person dies in this coun-
try as a result of a drunk driving crash.
**Statistics and information taken
from www.alcoholalert.com,
www.safeparents.com and
www.tcada.state.tx.us**