May 5, 2007 By Josh Krysak 4 min read

GEORGES TWP. – Hundreds of area students watched with shocked expressions at the motionless body of Albert Gallatin Area Senior High School senior Marquis Demniak Friday morning. Blood caked in her blonde hair and trickling from her eyes, Demniak was splayed over the hood of a red Ford Tempo, a shattered windshield resting on her back in the parking lot of the A.G. school.

Inside the car, two other A.G. students were bloodied and trapped in the rear of the car.

Meanwhile, the driver of the car – with a gash across his forehead and blood spattering his A.G. T-shirt – staggered between scrambling emergency personnel and tried to explain what happened as crews worked to extract a body from a second vehicle in the 8 a.m. crash and free another patient.

While all the victims in the simulated crash walked away from the scene unscathed, Demniak, the president of the school’s Students Against Drunk Drivers club, said she hoped the gore and realism of the mock crash sent a sobering message to the students in attendance.

“I hope it teaches everyone what it would be like,” Demniak said following the mock event, wiping fake skin tissue and blood from her face. “People need to be responsible.”

Demniak, 17, said she wanted to do the mock crash so students will think twice before drinking this prom season and realize the potential consequences of their actions.

“It was really scary to pretend to be dead,” Demniak said. “I just hope I am never in that situation.”

The mock crash was a coordinated effort organized by Randy Leech, Connie Fields and Eric Steinmiller, all of the Smithfield Fire Department, as well as Tim “Bubba” Sutton, emergency medical technician supervisor with Fairchance Firemen’s Ambulance, and Merritt Stefancik, who is the Students Against Drunk Drivers coordinator for the Albert Gallatin Area School District.

Steinmiller, a fire police officer with the Smithfield Volunteer Fire Department, narrated the event, which also was held last year.

According to Steinmiller, there are three points of impact at any crash scene: the first when the car strikes something, the second when the motorists’ bodies hit the car and the third when the organs inside the motorists hit the body.

Steinmiller said if a car is traveling 60 mph at the point of impact, the body will hit the car at a speed of 120 mph and the organs will hit the body at an even greater speed.

In addition to the mock fatalities, the simulated scene also showed the driver of one car intoxicated and out of control at the scene as well as the parents of a mock victim rushing emergency personnel and the drunken driver.

Smithfield police Officer Brian Harvey took the driver into custody.

The event concluded when Fayette County deputy coroners Marisa Springer and Jessie Langer arrived at the scene and pronounced both victims dead.

“I know that it looks funny,” Steinmiller told the students gathered on a hillside outside the school. “But DUI drivers are not funny and they will do the unexpected.”

Steinmiller said that while the scene might appear to be chaotic, emergency personnel control the situation according to specific protocol for such emergencies.

Firefighters cut the roof from the car and extracted the trapped students, while Roger Victor and John Kondrla from the Fayette County Coroner’s office used body bags to remove the two actors pretending to be dead.

“Today, they get to go back to class and see their friends that were in the crash,” Sutton said. “But it is not always that way. That is the point we are trying to get across.”

Participating in the event were members of the Fairchance and Smithfield volunteer fire departments, Fairchance Firemen’s Ambulance, Uniontown Fireman’s Ambulance, Smithfield police and the coroner’s office.

Sharon Sementa-Bunyan, art teacher at A.G., supplied the makeup for the student-actors, with the help of two students.