According to the Century Council, a non-profit advocacy group, in 2005, there were 125 alcohol related car accidents in West Virginia. Of those, 20 were underage teens. In order to make the students at Van a little more aware of the dangers, the school administrators, along with the Boone County Ambulance Authority, the Van High School Driver’s Education Department, local volunteer fire departments and Healthnet, staged a mock fatal car accident in the parking lot of Van Elementary School Thursday.

The mock accident could have just as easily been real. A sedan, filled with teenagers and beer bottles hits a sport utility vehicle head-on. Immediately, two things become clear. There were fatalities, and alcohol was likely the direct cause of the crash. Almost immediately, units from the Van and Wharton Volunteer Fire Departments arrived on the scene and began the grim task of rescuing the victims. The Jaws of Life extrication device was used to tear the doors off the sedan and to peel back the roof of the SUV. The survivors were stabilized and prepared for transport, and the more seriously injured patients faced a trip to CAMC in the Healthnet Helicopter.

In the distance, groups of Van Jr/Sr. High students watched the event, grim faced, but fixated on the accident scene. Possibly the mock event had the desired effect, because, according to Boone County Sheriff Rodney Miller, the highways in and around the Pond Fork area were relatively quiet over the weekend, and no underage Van students were involved in accidents.