On the morning of April 22, Linganore experienced a very shocking event–a car crash in the lower campus parking lot. No, the crash was not real. It was part of a simulation for Every 15 Minutes. The name comes from the statistic that every fifteen minutes, some one is killed from a drunk driving accident. Throughout the day, pre-selected students were removed from their classes every fifteen minutes to represent VOIDs (Victims Of Impaired Driving).

In the hours before the crash took place, a lot of preparation had to be done.  Rhianna Lapen, Ali Hammersla, Carter Schmidt, and Justin Knotts met at a discreet location with two make up artists, seniors Morgan Buchanan and Ashley Zink, to get a little “roughed up.”

After the make up was done, the students moved to the bottom lot where they had to arrange themselves in the smashed vehicles to appear as if they had been in an accident. All of the juniors and seniors were then called down the the lot of an “outdoor assembly.”

“It was kind of freaky, knowing that everyone would see me like this. I didn’t know how everyone would react, so that was kind of nerve-wracking,” Schmidt says.

The event was covered by Lancer Media and the Frederick News Post.

“I was pretty calm, but once the students started coming down, it [the crash] started to feel real and kind of scary,” says Hammersla who played the role of the drunk driver.

The whole program left a large impact on the school, and the crash vehicles remained for a week  in front of the entrance to the campus to remind students about the dangers of drinking and driving.