Death every 15 minutes as a result of drunk driving
Manteca Police Officer Brett Delgado, a school resource office at Manteca High, speaks with The Tower student reporter Melissa Valle about E-15 and the perils of drunk and drugged driving. (Guadalupe Enriquez)
By MELISSA VALLE
The Tower
In America, there is a death or serious injury every 15 minutes as a result of drunk and drugged driving.
To bring awareness to this issue, high schools across the nation hold a two-day event — E-15 — to try and convince students driving while under the influence is more serious and holds more consequences than they may think.
E-15 is an annual event held at Manteca High School but hosted by the Manteca Unified School District for the following schools: Manteca High, Sierra High, East Union High and Calla.
The event starts with students meeting at Guss Schmiedt Field at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 27. Once there, they will witness a car crash featuring students they may know or recognize. After, students go back to their classroom and read their classmates’ obituaries. On Day 2, students get into buses and head to the Christian Worship Center to attend mock funerals of their classmates.
The Tower got a chance to sit down with Brett Delgado, a school resource officer at Manteca High, as he explained what E-15 means to him, and why it is important that students attend.
When Delgado was in high school, he described how his school had an E-15 presentation, but it didn’t hit all the points schools do nowadays.
“We did have E-15, I don’t think it was as involved. We just did the crash scene and that was it, because now it’s a two-day event,” Delgado said. “It would’ve been awesome to have it more drawn out so you could see like the big picture of like what would happen after. You would see the chain of events of what would happen if someone was arrested or if someone was killed.”
E-15 is a project that includes multiple moving parts. It gives student the real experience of what would happen if they decided to be irresponsible. It breaks down the process to the students so they could see out in front of them; that their actions have consequences. There are many moving parts that make the presentation as realistic as could be. The project gets help from The California Highway Patrol, Manteca Police Department, and Manteca Fire.
Delgado has one goal for Thursday’s event: “Do not drink and drive. Do not do drugs and drive. Most people out there are able to find rides from someone else whether it’s their parents or whoever. It’s easier to let somebody be mad at you because you cannot drive and call them to pick you up, than it is to explain to them why you’re in jail or why you killed somebody.”