Members of the Hawthorne Police Department and Hawthorne Fire Department visited Hawthorne High School on May 29 and 31 to educate the Class of 2013 on the consequences of driving under the influence with a message that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.

The police officers made it clear that it is not okay for teenagers to drink under the legal age; however, knowing that is not going to stop people from doing it. They told the seniors that if they are ever at a party and have been drinking, they should call their parents or someone they can trust to pick them up rather than drive drunk and endanger the lives of others, as well as their own.

Students were then shown a video of a drunk driving incident and the severe consequences that stem from it. For example, in one incident a teenage boy and his friends had been drinking. The teenage boy, who was also the driver, hit a car killing his friends and the driver of the other car. The drunk driver was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Michelle Pasquale, senior at HHS, said, “It gave me a whole new perspective on the dangers of drunk driving.”

Jill Hackett, English teacher and drama club advisor at HHS, and students from her Performance English classes put together a skit to make the consequences of drunk driving even more real to the Class of 2013. They set the stage for a funeral in which a member of the current senior class lost his life in a drunk driving accident. The story went that drunk driver, played by senior Travis Peene, hit the car of fellow senior Steven Prieto. Prieto was pronounced dead after the accident. The accident caused everyone at the party, not only Peene, to feel the guilt of the death of friend. Everyone felt accountable for letting Peene drive drunk. At his staged funeral, Prieto was trying to explain to everyone that it wasn’t their fault, but only Hackett, who was a part of the skit, could hear him. Prieto was confused as to why she was the only one could hear him, until she explained that she was the driver of the third car involved in the accident and she too had died. Mahin Chowdhury, senior at HHS, stated “It was really good; it definitely opened my eyes.”

Although it was heart-wrenching for the senior class to have to pretend that they lost one of their own, the presentation made an impact on the Class of 2013 and helped keep them safe during prom weekend. The presentation also will sit in their hearts as a reminder to never drink and drive as no one wants tragic events like these to actually happen.