Ottumwa High School juniors and seniors were called out of class Wednesday (9/15) to see law enforcement respond to the scene of a two-car accident and hear one student screaming to another.

“I don’t mean to!  I looked at my phone for two seconds!”

That was part of a drill organized by Ottumwa Schools and Wapello County Emergency Management to demonstrate the dangers of distracted driving and drunk driving.  Two students died in the simulated accident.  Wapello County Emergency Management Director Tim Richmond talks about the drill.

“They’re used to multi-tasking but behind the wheel is not the place nor the time to do that.  When I was in high school, the social problem of the day was drinking and driving; we didn’t have devices.   Now you combine that with devices, they have twice the potential issues.  We just wanted to take a moment to have them pause and think about their mortality, because teens don’t do that, and show them what we see, unfortunately, as emergency services personnel all too frequently, and maybe prevent something like this from happening to them or their families.”

Students then returned to the Ottumwa High Auditorium for a funeral service for the two students who died in the crash.