Scaring Kids Straight Can Be a Traumatic Experience

Coffee and a doughnut.

Peaches and cream.

Teens and a car.

Only that last one can be life threatening.

Young drivers may have great reflexes but their judgments aren’t always the strongest.

And that leads many to view an automobile as a means to show off, drive too fast and put themselves, their passengers and others on the road and sidewalks in danger.

And hard as it is to believe, many parents wish their kids would wind up in Sunnybrook’s Trauma Unit. But not as a patient – as an observer.

The famous facility is part of an innovative idea called “The Party Program” designed to scare kids straight by showing them the real consequences of carnage on the road.

The participants who toured the area this week were all around 16 years of age. Many were smug. Most were sure it could never happen to them.

But when they were shown a video of the scene of a traffic disaster and saw the real patients who followed, all that teenage self-assuredness suddenly disappeared.

“The Party Program just tries to show the kids firsthand what happens  when they make a bad choice,” explains Joanne Banfield, the Manager of Trauma Injury Prevention.

Kids get to see the real blood and guts up close, the kind they won’t see on TV. There are transfusions, ambu bags, feeding tubes, rehab, surgical procedures and more.

And unlike the small screen, those hurt don’t always get to rise back up and return next week.  About 1,100 patients regularly pass through Sunnybrook’s treatment unit every year. Twelve percent of them die.

The graphic nature of the display is too much for several students, who felt faint and were forced to go outside. One even wound up lying on a stretcher. But the worse is yet to come.

The kids are taken into the room occupied by 22-year-old Chris Perneroski, who was injured in a dirt bike accident. Two months later he still can’t walk or talk.

Then there’s Jeff Bradfield who went out on a motorcycle ride with his best friend. Only he survived the accident that followed. But his recovery hasn’t been easy.

“He ended up hitting that car almost head on, was killed instantly, the remains of his bike were thrown all over at us,” he remembers.

“I never realized how bad it would be,” young Stefan agrees. “I don’t want to end up like him.”

How will it change him? “Not act like an idiot.”

The show and tell has its desired effect.

“It’s a little nerve wracking,” admits a student named Richard. “You see these patients. You obviously reconsider things you’ve done and things you will do.”

That kind of reaction makes it all worthwhile for Banfield. “For some it’s just very overwhelming to hear first hand from a trauma patient,” she notes. “And if that’s what it takes to prevent them from ever being a trauma patient, I think then that we’ve done our job.”

The Party Program started at Sunnybrook almost 20 years ago. It’s been so successful it’s gone national and now countries as far away as Japan plan to begin one of their own, as well.

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