If you had dropped a pin in the auditorium during this year’s senior assembly “Every 15 Minutes,” it would be heard by everyone in the room.
Old Rochester Regional High School holds this annual program to bring awareness to the statistic that ‘someone dies every 15 minutes due to drunk driving.’
Twelfth graders faced the facts of driving under the influence through the role-playing done by their peers and teachers and the actual stories told by those who intimitely understand the impact drunk driving has had on their lives.
“I think it’s a good program,” said senior Michael Sivvianakis, who put together a video that was featured during the event. “It was very informative, and it was nice to hear people talk about real life experiences; I hope it was eye-opening to students who might feel like they’re invincible.”
Shanice DaSilva was the main organizer behind this year’s Every 15 Minutes. DaSilva graduated from ORRHS in 2011 and is currently interning in the school’s guidance department for her Master’s degree.
“My freshman year of college, my friends and I were coming back from a New Year’s party in Boston. We thought it would be okay to drive because we were sober,” DaSilva said, explaining the personal importance of the awareness event. “We got hit by a drunk driver. It was a bad rear-end, the car was totaled, but we were all alive. I had to go to a chiropractor three times a week for the rest of my freshman year because of the whiplash to my back. When I had the chance to come back here as an intern and do a forty-hour project, Ms. Perry offered Every 15 Minutes to me.”
The previous day, senior students had spent an hour in groups watching a drunk driving awareness video. Officers from the Mattapoisett Police Department led discussions afterwards.
“If you’re at a party … we just want you to get home safely. I’m not saying you won’t be charged.… When we have you do breathalyzers, we’re not trying to put you on the spot. We just want you to get home safely.”
Officers offered legal perspectives to think from as well. “How much debt do you think being charged is going to cost? If he gets a fine, his insurance is going to go through the roof! If you’re a junior operator (under 21) and get in a car accident, your parents can get sued. And, if you’re a ‘JO’ and get stopped, you can lose your license too.”
Along with this, the entire school bore witness to one of the traditional aspects of Every 15 Minutes. Throughout the school day, select students were chosen by the Grim Reaper during their classes and dressed in black robes for the remainder of the day. These silent ghosts were “seen and not heard” just like killed victims in drunk driving accidents.
“I was really emotional the whole time because [dying in an accident] really can happen to anyone, and if you’re not careful then it can have a big impact on the lives around you,” said Madisen Martin, one of the 15 ghost students. “People came up to me afterwards and said they were sad I had died and they couldn’t talk to me. My mom was heartbroken to even think of the possibility of me dying.”
These students continued their ghostly roles the next day during a senior assembly in the auditorium. A video put together by Sivvianakis portrayed a potential situation that could lead to a fatal DUI accident.
“Jack Sollauer, Bryce Miedzionoski, Jason Gamache and the other students went out during their free time on Good Friday to film party and crash scenes,” Sivvianakis explained. “I pieced together footage from those shoots and then added in all of the ghost scenes to create the final product the night before the assembly.”
“I played the drunk driver part,” Sollauer commented. “In the movie, I blacked out when driving and killed my friends Bryce and Jason. Ms. Perry and I wrote an apology letter that I read at the presentation. It was depressing, but it had a big impact on me. I realized how dangerous it really is, so I’m never going to text or drink and drive. The program was really worth doing.”
“In addition to Jack’s apology letter, I gave the other students the option of writing an obituary, a letter to the driver, a goodbye letter to community or a letter to their parents,” DaSilva further explained. “What they said all came from them.”
The assembly also hosted familiar speakers who have been directly affected by drunk driving accidents. Jeannette Raposa, one of the school’s math teachers, told the story of her daughter Jessica. Jessica was only weeks away from her 21st birthday when she died in Fairhaven while driving under the influence in 2005.
“Jessica said, ‘Gosh Mom, relax! It’s not like I’m going to die!’ And that was the last time I saw her,” Raposa said during her speech to the silent students.
History teacher and basketball coach Steve Carvalho also spoke about a fatal crash that happened on the night of his high school graduation in 1981. One student was killed, one was paralyzed, and two escaped with only minor injuries. He also talked about another accident on the s-curves in Marion that killed two students, all leading to his grade being nicknamed the ‘Cursed Class of 1981.’
“I hope to have had a serious impact on the student body with a devastating story and my graduation night that really shattered families,” Carvalho said. “The fact that it had such a local, Tri-Town feel to it – that the stories I told were accidents in two out of the three towns on roads that kids know – I think it had more of an effect on the kids. Decisions can be fateful.”
“When I was a student here, Mr. Carvalho and Ms. Raposa were the speakers at my class’ Every 15 Minutes,” said DaSilva. “Mr. Carvalho’s story is from a student perspective, and it really resonated with me and my friends at the time because we were all athletes and that’s where his story came from. Ms. Raposa’s story about her daughter meant a lot to me because I went to Providence College and knew the club she had gone to that night, so it was all about places I knew and had been to and how close it all was to me.”
If you are interested in seeing the 2018 ORRHS ‘Every 15 Minutes’ video, it can be found online at https://vimeo.com/263238019.
ORR Update
By Jo Caynon