Prom Promise targets sober driving

By TAYLOR KASER –

About 700 Mor­row County Juniors and Seniors heard a gut wrench­ing story about the dan­gers of dri­ving while under the influ­ence Fri­day morn­ing at the Gilead Friends Church auditorium.

Not a sound was to be heard as Alyssa Cabot of San­dusky, told the story of how a drunk dri­ver struck the vehi­cle that she and her friends were rid­ing in one night.

State Troop­ers who first responded described a scene with mul­ti­ple injured per­sons and cars already smok­ing. Offi­cers pulled the drunk dri­ver and her dog out of one vehi­cle and four high school girls were res­cued out of their vehi­cle. Audio from the troop­ers com­mu­ni­ca­tion while on site was played, and pho­tos from the acci­dent were shown.

The only seri­ous injuries were sus­tained to the two girls sit­ting in the back­seat of the car. The woman who hit them on I-71 was a repeat drunk dri­ver and did not have a license at the time. When asked where she was, the woman answered Colum­bus, but the acci­dent took place on I-71 south of St. Rt. 95.

Alyssa’s mother described the fear and panic she felt when she learned that her daugh­ter had sus­tained injuries in an acci­dent and had been trans­ported to a hospital.

For­merly a com­pe­ti­tion cheer­leader, Alyssa spent weeks in the hos­pi­tal under­go­ing numer­ous surg­eries. A piece of the drunk driver’s vehi­cle broke off and struck Alyssa in the face. Now plan­ning on study­ing cos­me­tol­ogy, says the expe­ri­ence has changed her and fam­i­lies lives forever.

Safety dur­ing the prom sea­son was empha­sized through­out the pro­gram. Mak­ing respon­si­ble choices was high­lighted by a “Prom Promise” sheet given to all stu­dents. Stu­dents were asked to sign the sheet in a pledge to have a safe and fun prom while avoid­ing using alco­hol and ille­gal substances.

The pre­sen­ta­tion was orga­nized by the Health Depart­ment work­ing with the Safe Com­mu­nity Coali­tion as part of a pre-prom safety program.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Apr 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.