On Wednesday, April 26, 2000 and Thursday, April 27, 2000, Sunnyvale Public Safety, in conjunction with the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), Fremont High School and several other community agencies, will be conducting the Every 15 Minutes program on the Fremont High School campus.

In the United States, a person is injured or killed in an alcohol related motor vehicle collision approximately every 15 minutes, thus the name of the program. Every 15 Minutes is a two day event that challenges high school juniors and seniors to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, and the responsibility of making mature decisions when lives are involved.

Student participants are chosen well in advance and their parents are actively involved in this community event, sign waivers and understand their participation from the beginning. This community based policing partnership involves Public Safety, Fremont High School, American Medical Response (AMR), the Santa Clara County Coroner’s office, Kaiser hospital, ABC, and many community volunteers.

The first day of the program one student is removed from class every 15 minutes and becomes one of the "living dead". This represents one of the people killed in an alcohol related motor vehicle collision. A uniformed officer enters the classroom and reads the student’s obituary. Simultaneously, the parents of each living dead student are given their child’s death notification by a uniformed officer. The students have no contact with family or friends, and are taken to a retreat for team building exercises and alcohol resistance education until the next day. A mock cemetery and obituaries are placed somewhere on the school grounds.

In the afternoon, a simulated alcohol related motor vehicle collision is staged on the campus, using students as the victims and the drunk driver. Emergency personnel conduct a rescue and triage at the scene. One of the victims is transported to the hospital and attempts to save their life fail, one is transported to the morgue, and the DUI driver is arrested and booked into jail. The motor vehicle collision is designed to be as realistic as possible, and show all of the various agencies involved with responding to this type of emergency.

The second day the living dead students return to school to attend a student body assembly. The living dead students are seated in the front of the auditorium, opposite their parents. A video of the previous day’s events is shown and family members share their feelings of what it felt like to not be able to say good-bye.

No fiscal impact to the City.

Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, Crime Prevention Unit (408) 730-7140.

This item is for information only.

Prepared by:

Ron D’Alba
Lieutenant, Public Safety

Reviewed by:

Irwin I. Bakin
Director, Public Safety

Approved by:

Robert S. LaSala
City Manager