Responders expose students to dangers of driving

By LAURA BEHENNA Bigfork Eagle

Although no corpses appeared in the photos, the “Your Choice” slideshow presented Jan. 10 by Bigfork emergency medical technicians Paula Trembath and Summerlee Luckow made it clear that many of the car wrecks ended lives. Doug Peters’ driver education students watched in silence as the two EMTs showed photo after photo of bashed windshields, crushed roofs, dismembered steering wheels and cars crumpled to half their original length.

All the photos were of wrecks that happened in the Bigfork area in the last three years, Trembath said as she began the presentation.

“You’ll probably be amazed at how many accidents happen in the Bigfork area,” she said. Of the almost 600 calls the Bigfork ambulance crew took in 2006, about one-third were car accidents, Luckow added.

The key message the two Bigfork Fire & Ambulance volunteers conveyed was that making simple choices before driving can determine whether a driver causes or survives a wreck. Those choices include deciding whether to buckle a seatbelt, drive at a safe speed and stay sober when driving.

Fastening a seatbelt “takes like two seconds, and it makes a big difference,” Trembath said.

People involved in some wrecks that looked fatal actually walked away unhurt because they were wearing seatbelts, she said, showing a picture of a wrecked car whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. The woman survived because she was wearing a seatbelt, but the impact ejected her unbelted husband through the windshield, killing him, Trembath said.

She showed several photos of rollovers in which the riders escaped injury because their seatbelts held them in their seats - —even though their up-ended vehicle may have left them hanging upside down.

Seatbelts also save lives in “deer versus car” situations, she continued.

“If you’re going to hit a deer, don’t swerve, just hit it,” she advised, pointing out that it’s better to damage your car than risk your life.

She showed a photo of a car with a smashed-in roof caused by a deer that jumped off an overpass. The seatbelted driver ducked and survived the impact, she said.

“Be careful about putting things in the back of your car, because they can fly up and hurt you,” Trembath warned. She related the story of a driver whose seatbelt prevented serious injury in a wreck, but heavy items in his back seat hurtled forward and injured his head.

Excessive speed can be lethal, Luckow cautioned.

“Speed gets you in a lot of trouble on slick roads,” she said. She showed a photo of a truck whose high speed caused it to roll up a hill so steep that rescuers had to climb a ladder to reach the wreck. The driver of the truck was killed, Luckow said.

She advised wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle or four-wheeler, which may roll when driven too fast.

Alcohol is involved in 56 percent of all accidents, Trembath said. She told three stories, with photos, of youthful drunken drivers who died or whose passengers were killed when the impaired driver crashed the vehicle.

“It’s relatively easy to get a designated driver” who hasn’t used alcohol, she said.

Last, Trembath told the story of the drunken driver whose truck killed Somers Middle School teacher Dawn Bowker as she drove to work on the morning of Oct. 26, 2006. Jason Deshazer, 23, hit Bowker’s Subaru head-on, tearing the roof off and killing her instantly. Deshazer, a BHS graduate, will go on trial soon, Trembath said.

Any questions? The students responded with sober silence.

“We don’t want you to be afraid to drive, but just be smart about it,” Mr. Peters told them.