"Every 15 Minutes"

On Wednesday, April 29th, voices from a 911 call were heard over the PA system throughout the A.B. Miller High School campus. Students filtered out of their classrooms to the parking lot to find police cars with sirens blaring responding to the scene. The students gathered around two badly mangled cars filled with bloodied, dazed and critically-injured teenagers. For the next 45-minutes, the students watched the aftermath of the traffic collision as rescue workers used the jaws-of-life to extract the bodies from the wreckage and arrest the drunk driver responsible for this tragedy. Thankfully, this event was only a simulation as part of A.B. Miller’s participation in the “Every 15 Minutes” program.

Every 15 minutes someone in the United States dies from an alcohol-related traffic collision.  As we all know, life’s lessons are best learned through experience.  Unfortunately, when the target audience is teens and the topic is drinking and driving, experience is definitely not the teacher of choice.  The “Every 15 Minutes Program” provides real-life experience without the real-life risks.  The opportunity for A.B. Miller to participate in this program came courtesy of a grant their Peer Leaders received from the California Highway Patrol and the Office of Traffic Safety.

In order to make this experience accessible to as many of their peers as possible, Chris Lee’s Video Production class shot footage of the event and produced a video that addresses how a tragedy such as this affects every facet of the school campus, from the student-body to the individual families of the victims. They will be submitting their completed work for the “Every 15 Minute” video competition. A.B. Miller will be airing the video schoolwide on Friday, May 1st, and then distributing it to all of the high schools in our district. Our district’s cable station, Channel 17, and the City of Fontana’s station, Channel 3, will also be airing the video.

Over 100 students were involved in the production in cooperation with the California Highway Patrol, San Bernardino Fire Department, American Medical Response, Fontana Police Department, County Coroner, Loma Linda Hospital. Many of the agencies were on hand April 29th, providing the same services they would provide in an actual car crash. Footage was also shot at the Fontana Police Department’s lower detention facility for the fingerprinting and booking scenes, as well as at Loma Linda Hospital. A.B. Miller’s Peer Leadership Advisor, Randy Bertok, said, “Those scenes were all pretty intense.” The parts of the mothers of two of the car crash victims were played by the students’ real mothers. Mr. Bertok said that very little “acting” was required when film crews videoed the mothers’ reacting to the deaths of their children. “The tears that came flooding out were all real. The mothers underestimated how real the experience would feel to them when they agreed to take part in the production.”

This time of year when proms and graduation celebrations are coming up, reminders such as these are more important than ever. Said Mr. Bertok, “I hope the students’ watching the video stop and think about the consequences their actions can have and that they realize just how precious each and every life is. Some mistakes can’t be undone.”

Click here to view the "Every 15 Minutes" video produced by the A.B. Miller High School Video/Production Class.

.