July-September, 2003

Docudramas: catching a glimpse of what  happens in an alcohol-related crash

St. John’s emergency personnel too often see the devastating results of drinking and driving. Staff from St. John’s Trauma and Burn Center assist local high schools and universities to stage mock car crashes, or docudramas. The purpose of docudramas is to give students a glimpse of what happens during an alcohol-related car crash.

The process of setting up docudramas is a community effort. A team of St. John’s Trauma and Burn Center nurses use makeup and other supplies to transform student volunteers into realistic-looking crash victims. Firefighters, paramedics, police officers and other emergency personnel respond to the scene as if it were a real situation. The local fire departments use the Jaws of Life to extract crash victims from the car. Paramedics treat victims’ mock injuries and police officers give sobriety tests to the mock drunk drivers and even put them in handcuffs.

The impact a docudrama has on students can be the key to saving more lives.

“The scenario was so believable that people were looking out of their dorm room windows and others were coming outside because they thought it was real,” says Southwest Missouri State University sophomore Amber Bond, who recently participated in a docudrama coordinated by St. John’s at SMSU.

Each year approximately 20 high schools and universities in the Ozarks coordinate a docudrama with St. John’s Trauma Prevention Program. Following the crash scene, the student audience attends an assembly led by St. John’s Trauma Prevention Education Coordinator Pam Holt, RN, BSN, which gives the student body an opportunity to discuss the crash scene and the events surrounding the mock crash.

Holt also presents a powerful, interactive presentation called “Crash Test Dummies: Up Close and Personal.” During the presentation, Holt explains the physics of a motor vehicle crash and describes the injuries that crash victims commonly sustain.  She also discusses various driving behaviors such as inattention and drinking and driving with the students.  

As the only Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center in southwest Missouri, St. John’s is dedicated to community outreach and prevention by providing these types of educations programs. According to state regulation, a Level 1 Trauma Center such as St. John’s must meet and maintain certain criteria and obligations for the community.  Because St. John’s chooses to be a Level I Trauma Center, there is always a surgeon inside the hospital prepared to respond to a trauma patient in the emergency department or the intensive care unit.  St. John’s also has a dedicated trauma research program along with the injury prevention program, which sets them apart form other hospitals in the area.

St. John’s Regional Health Center is the only hospital in the Ozarks area that provides complete coordination of docudramas, which includes the makeup used and the presentation following the mock crash.  If you are interested in organizing a docudrama for your school, organization or business, contact Pam Holt at 417-885-6672.

First-Hand Recollection by Missy Todd, SMSU student participant

This first-hand recollection is by Missy Todd, a student at Southwest Missouri State University who participated in a docudrama organized by St. John’s Trauma and Burn Center.

I remember the warm fluid running down my face. The first sounds I heard were the blood-curdling screams of my two friends.  I could not understand their cries because I was concentrating on the distinct sounds of the sirens in the distance. I’m not sure how long I listened to my friends’ screams before I decided to open my eyes. Their screams were so loud that I couldn’t focus on the sirens. 

As I tried to open my eyes to see what the commotion was about, I lost vision in my right eye. What I saw with my left eye was a scene that will be forever etched in my mind. The spider-web crack in the windshield was the first thing that came into focus. That must have been caused by my head, and red fluid on the dash board, I assumed, was a result of the collision between my head and the glass. John was supposed to be driving. He was the least drunk out of the three of us. Where was he now?  He’s not in the car!  But I could feel Emily’s hand on my left shoulder. She was in the back seat. I remember being scared.  I felt all alone ...

Then, suddenly, a white sheet was put over me.  ‘Wait,’ I thought.  ‘I’m supposed to live.  I’m not dead!  This isn’t what was supposed to happen!’ What I heard next made the hair rise up on the back of my neck.  The sound of crushing metal was next to the right side of my head.  It reminded me of when my father and I used to crush soda cans before recycling them. But I knew what was happening. It wasn’t soda cans that were being crushed, it was the car door. Apparently my door had jammed during the crash and the firefighters had to cut the door off to get me out . . . 

As paramedics loaded me onto the stretcher I could still hear the screams.  “Where’s Emily? Where’s John?” I yelled.  But my cries went unanswered.  As I was put into the back of the ambulance I saw Emily.  She was sitting up with a nervous smile on her face.  “That was intense,” she said with a shaken voice. 

I unhooked the belts holding me onto the stretcher and sat next to her on her gurney.

“I know,” I said looking out the ambulance window to the crowd of people now gathered around the car. “Good thing it wasn’t real.”