GLASGOW — The seniors at Barren County High School were able watch to as the consequences of drunk driving, including the death of a classmate, played out in an exercise school officials hoped would bring them perspective.

Thursday afternoon, local law enforcement and school officials brought the students out to a mock wreck on the front lawn of their high school, where one of their friends had been killed by a drunk driver. Max Edison, 18, was ejected from the car because he was not wearing his seat belt.

“With prom coming up and summer, we want to show kids the dangers of drinking and driving and the effect it can have on the people around them,” said Barren County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Wyatt.

The demonstration is conducted around the same time every year at different high schools around the area. Barren County High School Assistant Youth Director Felicia Montgomery said she hoped it would be a rude awakening for the students when they saw the extrication devices members of the Glasgow Fire Department used to pry open the back doors of the car. She made a point to find a group of friends to be in the car wreck to make the scene more realistic.

Edison and his friends and fellow crash victims, Clay Larkin, 18, Veronica Smith, 17 and Kelsey Trowbridge, 17, all volunteered to help their classmates see the dangers and know the consequences.

“There will be some people laughing and all that, but I think it will have an effect on all of them,” Edison said. “It’s for a good cause.”

For Edison it was even more realistic because his mother, Debbie Adair, offered to be the parent who was notified her son had been killed.

“When I was driving up here I was thinking about how it would be [to see him in the wreck] and I had to regain control of myself,” Adair said. “It’s a very sobering experience since the kids get to see the effect on parents.”

When Adair walked up to the scene and was told by police what had happened, she broke down crying and was led away by officers and paramedics.

Smith and Trowbridge hoped the exercise helped, especially because a friend, BCHS student Molly Thompson, 17, died in a car crash when she lost control of her vehicle on Coral Hill-Halfway Road last December.

“We know some of the students will cry, because it’s people from the school, it’s people they know,” Smith said. 

The Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Medical Services, Glasgow Fire Department, Glasgow Police Department and the sheriff’s office all participated in the exercise, going through the entire process of wreck response.

Firefighters used extrication devices to cut off the two back doors of the crashed sedan, and pulled Smith and Larkin out on backboards. They carried them to waiting ambulances. Trowbridge, the driver and the only one wearing a seat belt, screamed their names as the rescue went on, before being taken off to an ambulance.

Firefighters and paramedics then tended to Edison, who was lying face down on the grass a few feet away from the car. He was evaluated by a coroner before being put on a stretcher and taken away in a hearse.

The Air Methods helicopter had to respond to a call and could not participate, but they landed on the lawn a few minutes after the ambulances were gone just to show the students what would happen.

“I thought it was interesting,” said Jessica Brown, 17. “If you actually paid attention to what was going on, it was a good message for everyone.”

David Brown, 18, is a student ambassador with Drive to Stay Alive, a non-profit organization promoting driver awareness, and said it was a very realistic program.

“I thought it was really good, there’s a lot of [students] in denial about it. They don’t think this will happen to them, but I think this gave a great mental picture,” Brown said.