‘Some of them were laughing and joking when they got here, but no one’s laughing now,” one observer noted Thursday, when the student body at Waimea High School got a wake-up call about the dangers of drinking and driving. The
‘Some of them were laughing and joking when they got here, but no one’s laughing now,” one observer noted Thursday, when the student body at Waimea High School got a wake-up call about the dangers of drinking and driving.
The scenario may have been made up, the injuries carefully planned out, and the realism added through make-up artistry, but the situation was real.
The actions and responses of the emergency crew personnel who responded to the situation were also real. And, that could have been what triggered the somber realization that any one of the several hundred students could’ve been in the place of any of the victims.
“I think they realize that it could happen to them,” one police officer said as he wrapped up operations.
“Some of them were even crying – even the boys,” another observer noted.
The scenario involved a student, apparently driving under the influence of alcohol, who lost control of his pickup and collided with a van full of students making their way to school.
In the process, one student from the van was thrown from the vehicle and onto the corner of one of the school’s stone retaining walls, the body coming to rest on the grassy shoulder in a pool of blood.
This was the scene that greeted students as they were interrupted from their assembly in the school’s cafeteria by the multiple screams of sirens that abruptly stopped in the parking area fronting the school’s grassy stage area. Students got a clear, unobstructed view of the emergency personnel response as they lined the fence that ran along the parkway.
Apparently, the female student, who was thrown from the van, was pronounced dead on arrival and paramedics quickly shrouded the body with a sheet while tending to the other victims, some of whom groaned in agony.
A hysterical passenger from the pickup, apparently escaping any injury, had to be led away by police officers, her screams of “See what you did!” hanging in the air above the Menehune campus.
The driver of the pickup, apparently in shock, was silent as he was treated by paramedics before being led away for further questioning and testing by police officers under the glaring scrutiny of hundreds of pairs of eyes from the student spectators.
Firefighters from the Waimea station used the jaws of life to force open the doors of the van that were crushed by the impact of the pickup.
Joining forces with the paramedics, one, two, and three victims were wheeled to waiting ambulances for transport to Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital for treatment, their short trip being escorted by police vehicles.
It was at this point that the hearse appeared to take away the corpse just before the tow trucks that would remove the badly mangled vehicles.
The clock showed that a mere 30 minutes had passed since the students first appeared along the fenceline from their cafeteria gathering, but the period of emergency response seemed a lot longer.
Silence dominated the campus as the students left the scene for classrooms, their youthful zest silenced by the scene they had just witnessed.
As part of the Shattered Dreams, students dressed as living dead as well as Grim Reapers made calls on unsuspecting students, marking them as a victim of drunken driving throughout the day.
A similar program was conducted last year at Kapa‘a High School, and should the program continue, one is planned for Kaua‘i High School.
Dennis Fujimoto, staff photographer and writer, can be reached at 245-3681,m ext 2534 or email dfujimoto@pulitzer.net
