Spring is a momentous time for high school teenagers. Spring break trips, prom and graduation festivities will have teens hitting the road with their friends in search of fun high school memories.

Fayette school officials want to help make sure that teens practice safety while behind the wheel so that their fun doesn’t turn tragic for them, their friends and family.

Statistics from the Allstate Foundation reveal some eye opening facts about teenage drivers: about 16 teen drivers are killed in car crashes each day in the U.S., auto crashes are the number one killer of teens, edging out tobacco, suicide, violence and drugs. Another 300,000 teens are injured in car crashes each year.

These statistics classify teenage driving as a chronic public health issue. That’s why each year the school system’s CARE (Children at Risk in Education) program sponsors a sobering, attention grabbing program called Ghost Out. High schools in the county take turns hosting the program for their students. The program was held at Whitewater High this year.

Ghost out is different from other traffic demonstrations students may have seen. Students share, with crash victims, exactly what is experienced during and after a serious accident. Students experience in graphic detail what is happening to the vehicle and its passengers in real time, just as it would happen in an actual crash.

Student volunteers, with their parent’s permission, are selected ahead of time to be crash victims. Throughout the day, a person dressed as the grim reaper pulls the selected students from class. No students, other than those selected as participants, know about the program or the events that are about to take place.

Students taken from class are made up to look like ghosts and are considered dead. Each student represents a teenage driver who will die on the road that day. Students are returned to class but cannot speak to anyone except if asked a question by a teacher.

The student body finally learns what is going on toward the end of the school day when the program culminates with a realistic crash reenactment involving their classmates. The program is graphic and shocking. School counselors closely monitor students to help anyone who is having difficulty with what they have witnessed.

“This program is disturbing. It is meant to be to get students’ attention,” says Whitewater Principal Greg Stillions. “If it makes just one student think twice about their behavior behind the wheel, if it saves just one life, then all of it is worthwhile.”

Students at Whitewater have a lot to celebrate. This is the first year the school will have a graduating senior class, giving special significance to spring break, prom and graduation activities. Math teacher Daire Munsey, who is also the school’s SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving) sponsor, knew this was the year to bring Ghost Out to the school.

“My students have wanted to do this program for several years but I told them we needed to wait until we had a senior class. The students see this as their gift to the seniors at Whitewater,” says Munsey.

Ghost Out takes months of planning, preparation and coordination with participants both inside and outside the school. Munsey says she and her students started working on the program in October. She worked closely with Robert Kurbes, a Safe Kids of Fayette representative, and Karen Spangler, the school system’s CARE coordinator, to organize the event. Students in the school’s health occupation and television production classes were instrumental in making the program a success by volunteering to serve as ghosts, applying makeup to students selected to be ghosts and organizing a live broadcast of the crash reenactment that was viewed on closed circuit television throughout the school by the entire student body.  

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