Crash reenactment hits home

BONNERS FERRY — “The impact of this life-altering event never goes away,” Dawn Carpenter said, recounting the tragic story of how her father and sister were taken in an instant by a drunk driver.

Then there was Jamielyn Rupe, the sole survivor of a terrible crash caused by a drunk driver, which took her mom and 6-year-old sister. Rupe was just a baby.

“Because of one man’s decision to drink and drive I have had to live my whole life without my mom,” she said.

Wayne and Wanda Wilkerson lost their son, Josh, on Aug. 20, 2013, in a crash on Highway 95 at Mountain Meadows Road due to a distracted driver.

“That person’s simple, unimportant, harmless decision to use his phone took our son away from us forever, took a husband from his wife and created a 19-year-old widow,” said the Wilkersons.

Three tragic stories are told by the survivors, the families, the ones left behind.

In an effort to educate Bonners Ferry High School students about the dangers of impaired or distracted driving, Principal Kevin Dinning and Boundary County law enforcement simulated a gruesome crash scene using two wrecked vehicles, occupied by eight students cloaked in grisly makeup. To keep the shock factor as real as possible, the students had been sequestered prior to the event in a room at the Kootenai River Inn with no cell phones.

The scenario was of four seniors traveling south toward the high school, driving erratically at high rates of speed. They crossed into the northbound lane, hitting another car, also occupied by four seniors. One car was driven by an impaired driver, played by Mason McGinnis; the other a distracted driver, played by Shelby Sporl.

David Cossairt was the passenger thrown through the windshield. Sophia Claphan, Brooke Wallace, Alex Urbaniak, Karla Horton, and Conner Krezman played the parts of the passengers with varying degrees of injuries.

In a performance so realistic that some watching students were obviously emotional, the scene unfolded, starting with the 9-1-1 call. A Bonners Ferry Police officer was first on scene, followed by officials from Bonners Ferry Fire Department, Boundary County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Police, South Boundary Fire, as well as support units and equipment. All responded as if it was a real event.

The impaired driver was given a field sobriety test while injured passengers were extricated from the vehicles. A Life Flight helicopter arrived, to the surprise of the onlookers, throwing up a huge cloud of dust as it landed in the parking lot. The most critically injured passenger was loaded aboard and it took flight again.

The final scene showed the dead victim removed from the car and taking one final ride, this time in a hearse.

Sporl, who played the part of the distracted driver remarked, “I had a friend that was in a drunk driving accident and died, and it wasn’t until we were in the cars that it started sinking in. It was really hard to see David going away like that because I wasn’t at the accident. It made it real for me. It happened several years ago so it really took me back. As far as how this whole process impacted me... it was a hard reminder.”

The students moved to the auditorium, where speakers shared their stories of how their lives were impacted by impaired or distracted drivers. Principal Dinning encouraged students who might be having a hard time to speak to somebody about it. “Come and find me,” he said, “or talk to our counselors, talk to a chaplain who is in our auditorium right now, or talk to a teacher.”

Carpenter and Rupe both told their devastating stories of losing their family members to drunk drivers.

Both women lost their family at a very young age and were in the vehicles at the time of the accidents. The stories were poignant and impactful.

For Carpenter, 45 years was still not enough time to make the pain go away. She still suffers from flashbacks and had to learn to live with “survivor’s guilt,” something they did not have a name for in 1972. She recounted the harrowing and painful story of her ride in the ambulance with a Good Samaritan. To this day, she cannot fall asleep in a car.

Rupe set the scene by describing an accident, complete with photos, of an intersection where an impaired driver hit another car carrying 26-year-old Tracy Rogers with her two daughters, a 6-year-old and a baby. Rogers and the older daughter died on impact. The baby, Rupe, was found alive half an hour later.

Idaho State Police Sgt. Allen Ashby then took the stage. He explained to the students, “We respond to what you saw in the parking lot on average two to three times a month.”

Ashby, a former student of Bonners Ferry High School, lightened the mood for a moment when he explained his job doing collision reconstruction, “Which is essentially taking all the math that I learned in the classes a couple hallways down- thinking that I would never use it again in my life - algebra and trig and physics. Taking that math and putting the crashes back together to see what the causes were.”

Ashby explained the three biggest causes as “Seatbelts, impaired or drunk driving, and distracted driving.”

While drunk drivers have been around for a long time, distracted drivers in the form of people texting or engaging in social media while driving, are on the rise. Wayne and Wanda Wilkerson told their story about losing their son. As the first photo appeared on the screen, someone left the auditorium sobbing.

“Our son would not have died that day if the choice was made by the other driver to not use his phone when driving, or if he pulled over to use his phone, or waited until his destination before using his phone. It’s that simple,” said Wayne Wilkerson, choking up. “If you’re driving and your phone buzzes, beeps, chirps, or flashes... please, pull over or wait until you get to where you are going.”

He emphasized: “It is not our intent or desire to cause any additional hurt or blame to the other families involved in this crash. We have forgiven those individuals and pray that they have peace in their hearts.”