APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – This week more than 5,800 high school students will learn about distracted and drunk driving.
It’s part of an education program held at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center.
Dr. Ray Georgen, a trauma surgeon at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Neenah tells FOX 11 for over 20 years, members of the Trauma Center at ThedaCare hosted a reality-based education program called PARTY, which stands for Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth.
“Anything we can do, time and energy wise, to prevent even one of these students from making a wrong decision in the future is worth all the time and effort we put in it.”
The program shows the consequences of poor decisions behind the wheel. It includes acts and several speakers.
Mark Friend lost half a leg 6 years ago because someone else made a poor decision.
“I was dead for 15 minutes, I had a less than 1 percent survival I was told,” Friend told Georgen on stage.
“This is 36 surgeries in the last 5 years, cost me my marriage.”
Friend was hit by a car driven by Brooke Wedeward. Wedeward said she didn’t scrape the ice off her window all the way, which hindered her sight.
“Next thing I know there’s a man lying in front of my car, screaming at me to reverse,” Wedeward told the audience.
“After the accident, I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt. There was nothing I wanted more than to switch places with Mark. I had thoughts of suicide, I isolated myself,” explained Wedeward.
Three years after the accident, Wedeward and Friend reconnected only to learn how much their lives have been affected.
Georgen tells FOX 11 the impact is powerful.
“There’s not only the physical harm but it’s mental, we have people who can never go in a car again, the effect it has on their families, siblings mothers, fathers.”
Over the past 20 years, the two-day event has reached 67,000 high school students.
