HOT PURSUIT

Savannah Erler knows what it’s like to die and come back alive. Well, sort of.

The Medford High School senior was involved in a serious car wreck in the parking lot of the school and was pronounced dead at the scene by the county coroner and sheriff’s deputies. She was carried away in a black body bag and loaded up in a hearse by Glen Meger of the Medford Funeral Home.

Luckily, Erler is fine as it was all part of a mock car crash last Friday morning for students in grades 10-12 at Medford. Teenagers got to witness how rescuers handle car crashes and see one of the students get arrested for driving while intoxicated.

After coming back to life, Erler admitted she was excited about the experience as it “probably will be the only time I will be put in a body bag, as vulgar as that sounds.”  On a cool morning, she found it hard to act dead when she was freezing.

“It was different. I had my eyes closed most of the time,” said Erler, who is a member of the school’s Students Against Destructive Decisions group. “It was a once in a lifetime experience.”

More than anything Erler hopes her fellow students will take away an important lesson from the staged crash involving two vehicles and several student drivers and passengers. “It shows how it can happen to anyone,” she said. “I hope people know driving under the influence is not worth it. Get rides,” she added.

Steele County Sheriff Lon Thiele has been organizing mock crashes every three or four years for the past 15 years or so. “We don’t want students to be become desensitized with seeing it every year,” he said.

In his brief remarks to the students, Thiele asked them, “What if you came to class the next day and the person next to you wasn’t there because of something horrible that happened?”

While everything is staged with real people, Thiele knows it has impact. “I saw some of the role players with actual tears in their eyes. It got them thinking what if it were real and was one of their friends involved,” he said.

Thiele hopes the efforts of local law enforcement, fire and EMS will drive home the message that distracted driving and intoxicated driving kills innocent people. Joining the sheriff’s office were the State Patrol, Medford Fire, Mayo Ambulance and Aircare, Medford Funeral Home and Steele County Emergency Management. Misgen’s Auto of Ellendale also donated the cars used to simulate the crash. There were about eight SADD students who role played drivers, passengers and witnesses.

“I’m making sure I don’t have to stop at a parent’s house and give them the dreaded news about their loved one’s death,” Thiele said. “I feel we made a very deep impact with a lot of students,” he added.

For Erler, she hopes the lesson goes beyond prom weekend.

“I hope they stay safe this weekend and extends on for the rest of their lives,” she said.

Safety is what the sheriff and other rescuers are in hot pursuit of for teenage drivers as well as anyone else.