Everyone noticed the boxes of tissues placed at the end of every row in the auditorium on April 10, as students filed in and prepared for “Every 15 Minutes,” a presentation to seniors about drunk driving and texting while driving. The tissues were an ominous sign of what was to come, but some students seemed amused, probably convinced that tissues would not be necessary.

Each student that passed through the doors was greeted by a dark figure in a black cloak, his face a skull. He looked the students in the eyes as they passed, and then the figure of death led a stream of others cloaked in black behind him to the front rows of the auditorium, while their classmates chuckled, finding it funny.

The sentiment did not last long, though.

Once Linda Chaves, an ER trauma nurse, spoke to the students about her experiences with drunk-driving injuries at Newport Hospital, the mood quickly changed.

“I’m not here to lecture you,” said Chaves. She was there with a message, and she began by listing the statistics.

Every 15 minutes, a person dies from drunk driving. Drunk driving claimed 24,365 American lives in 2012, and injured or maimed 917,000. There are 1.6 million DUI arrests every year.

Things quickly became solemn as Chaves got to the point when she had to deliver the devastating news to a mother that her son was killed after he drove drunk and crashed.

She let out a scream, said Chaves, “Like a wild animal that got its foot caught in a trap.”

Parents seated in the first row were the first to start reaching for the tissues to wipe away tears.

Chaves told the captivated audience how a hospital staff prepares the body before loved ones enter the room to see their lifeless child, under a heated blanket, with one single hand placed on top – the first thing a distraught mother reaches for.

The stage was very dimly lit – no stage light shone on Chaves – and the auditorium was dark. The tone was already serious, but the energy in the room shifted dramatically when Chaves disclosed that, several years ago, while at work, the police arrived to give her the devastating news that her own 19 year-old son, Charlie, was killed after he drove drunk and struck a tree.

She recalled the last time Charlie called her from college, the night before he was to return home for a visit – “I love you, Mom,” he told her. “I love you too,” she told her son.

“I can’t tell you how precious those words are, because they were the last words I ever heard him speak,” she said.

At that moment, those tissues at the end of each row did not seem so uncalled for. Tears were falling, noses began running, and tissues were suddenly being passed down.

“Please think before you go out,” Chaves pleaded. “Call your parents, stay where you are…” Whatever you do, she begged, do not drive drunk or get into a car with someone who has been drinking. That decision could have a lifetime of consequences.

“And I’m living that lifetime,” said Chaves. “Please be safe. You are loved by a lot of people who care about you.”

A film created by ORR students followed with the star being the grim reaper who met the seniors at the auditorium door. He walked from classroom to classroom, every 15 minutes entering another and calling on his latest victim, who quietly got up and followed death out the door – leaving behind only a photograph and the name of the student taped to the wall.

The message was driven home as students saw their friends depicted as victims, with the saddest, most sorrowful music one could imagine playing in the background. At one point in the film, one of the “deceased” victims sat alone at a table in the middle of the cafeteria, invisible to the others who were carrying on without them, living their lives and getting ready for their bright futures – a future the victim would never get to have.

Students performed a skit with the Rochester Police depicting a crash, with a white, blood-soaked blanket draped over the friend of the teenager who selfishly chose to drive drunk – now in handcuffs.

One girl read a poem that she wrote to her mom about what her final thoughts would be while dying after a crash. Some students and their parents who were seated on the stage in a semicircle began sobbing and wiping tears as they got ready to read the letters they wrote to their parents “from beyond the grave” and the letters their parents wrote to their “dead” children.

Rochester Police enacted mock house calls to a few parents, delivering to them the news that their child had been killed while the child witnessed the scene unfold.

What transpired next was extremely emotional and, if it didn’t hit the kids in the audience by that point, it did now when moms and dads, sons and daughters read their letters to each other, struggling to get though it – wrapping their heads around just how important a child is to their parents, how their children are their whole world, and how life would end without them.

The message was love. To let love keep them from making the fatal mistake of driving drunk, getting in a car with someone who has been drinking, or texting while driving. To allow the image of their parents’ suffering – and one father who was an emotional wreck on the stage – keep them from ever taking the risk.

“My family means everything to me,” a father read from his letter to his son. “Each day is a challenge. I just wish and pray to have you back,” he continued as tears poured down his reddened face. “And I can’t wait for the day I take my last breath so I can hold you again.”

There was serious sobbing in the audience now. It was safe to assume, that at this point, not one eye remained dry.

“My arms will ache to hug you,” said one mother to her daughter who was crying on the stage.

Parents continued reading letters remembering their dead children, and students read their own letters, apologizing for their selfishness and their stupid mistake.

“What I just witnessed is pretty much going to keep me sober for another day,” said speaker Pat Cronin, who talked about his battle with drug addiction. “I wish that I had this in my high school.”

ORR Faculty Member Deb Soares said her son, Terell, is 21 years-old and still thinks about the impact the “Every 15 Minutes” program had on him. She said he always calls her when he needs a ride after drinking.

“I didn’t expect it to hit me this hard,” said Ali Grace, an ORR student, after the presentation. “I know that, due to this, my choices in the future are definitely going to change.”

“It was very powerful,” said Colin Knapton, who appeared on the stage during the presentation. “It was very personal.” He said the presentation has convinced him to never take the risk of driving drunk.

By Jean Perry