By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
Standing near a scene of twisted metal, broken glass and emergency personnel, 18 year-old Alyssa Cseh didn’t know what happened. One minute she was driving down the road with friends and the next, people were being flown to nearly hospitals and others weren’t responding at all., Speaking with Officer Russ Wilde of the Hillsborough Police Department, she still didn’t know what happened – other than that she’d had some alcohol before taking the wheel. Her friends joined her in the car that ultimately crossed into the oncoming lane and crashing head-on with an SUV. It was a single decision that changed her life and those of her family, friends and everyone else involved., At least, that’s what was portrayed in the Hillsborough High School parking lot as Alyssa and a number of her classmates participated in an annual anti-drunk driving program at the school called Every 15 Minutes., Touted by district officials as a “school and community-based alcohol prevention program,” Every 15 Minutes has used simulated scenarios since 2011 to safely expose students to the consequences that can come crop up from decisions made under the influence., “I think the most important thing is that this program is about saving lives,” HHS Student Assistance Counselor and program coordinator Rebecca Balaguer said. “If one life is saved by the program, it’s worth it.”, According to a 2012 study on teenage drinking and driving by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 are “17 times more likely to die in a crash” when they have a blood alcohol level of .08 percent than when they were sober. The same report estimated that one out of every 10 teen drivers surveyed reported that they had driven while under the influence., During the afternoon on April 20, the senior class participated in activities that emphasized a statistic that someone dies in an alcohol-related motor vehicle accident every 15 minutes., To do that, 19 students were selected to participate in the program to serve as the “living dead.” In that role, the once senior was pulled out of their classroom every 15 minutes throughout the day by an individual dressed as the Grim Reaper, a Hillsborough police officer and Hillsborough High School Principal Karen Bingert, who read a prepared obituary for that student., At that time, the pupil is made to look dead with makeup and tagged before returning to their classroom. For the rest of the day, they are barred from interacting with their fellow classmates as a silent reminder of a drunk-driving death., “We try to get a cross section that’s reflective of the student body,” Rebecca Balaguer said. “We’re a very large school, so we try to get all groups represented so our students get the idea that it can happen to them or someone they’re affiliated with.”, For the chosen students like Liana Bruno, 18, the day’s activities were a challenging test of her dedication to the program and its message., “I have some of my best friends in class and walking in and not talking to them at all was very difficult,” she said. “Everything happens daily and you reset, go to the next day and whatever happened the previous day can be fixed or rearranged, but in this case, you were playing a person who isn’t coming back the next day.”, Later that afternoon, the aforementioned simulated car crash, complete with students playing the dead and disabled and mangled vehicles, was staged in the high school’s large parking lot. During that simulation, emergency services removed fatalities and injured students from the scene as police arrested and booked Alyssa., The dead, district officials said, were taken to the morgue while the injured were flown by helicopter to the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Somerset., While the injured and dead were tended to, Alyssa was taken to police headquarters, processed and then taken to the municipal court for a mock hearing., “You live in this town and you have these perfect lives and you think that this can’t or wouldn’t happen to you,” Alyssa said. “When I walked into that courtroom in the orange jumpsuit and shackles … it was really hard and I almost immediately started crying.”, Once there, parents of the injured and deceased testified against the teen, blaming her for what happened. Alyssa’s parents also testified before the judge, asking for mercy and blaming themselves for what happened., When it was all said and done, Alyssa had been sentenced to roughly 25 years in jail. She would be close to 45 years old when she regained her freedom., “Even though I knew it was fake, it felt so real,” she said. “It really hit me about how one decision can end up with me losing most of my life.”, For Alyssa, the program also had a personal connection, as her father had been involved in a drunk-driving accident when someone under the influence collided with his car on New Year’s Eve when he was in high school. No one was killed, but the people in his car and the drunk driver sustained injuries., “Seeing what might have happened to my dad definitely put an emotional aspect on the program,” Alyssa said. “You don’t want this to happen to anybody and definitely brought it to a personal note.”, Though only 20 seniors participated in the day’s events, a video chronicling their experiences were shown the following day to the high school’s 520 seniors., When it was all said and done, Liana said she was proud of her fellow seniors and their willingness to participate in the program, since she believed the message was more important than the day’s events., “Even if one person knows and you’re doing everything right, there’s still other people out there that may not have had the message brought to them,” she said. “That’s the importance of this program. It’s not just affecting the 20 people involved – it’s affecting the student body.”
