Knoch students see horrors of drunken driving firsthand
JEFFERSON TWP — A drunken motorist whose blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit and driving at 101 mph on Interstate 79 killed Natalie Parkinson’s daughter, Renee — a schoolteacher — after Fourth of July festivities more than 10 years ago.
In Knoch High School’s gymnasium on Thursday morning, May 2, juniors and seniors listened as Parkinson, a victim advocate with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, recounted her story as a parent who received the late night call no parent wants to get.
She was joined by Sherry Wenck, who lost her 15-year-old daughter, Alexis, in a crash in 2012 after her boyfriend drove them while he was drunk and high.
At the last minute, Alexis’ sister chose not to get in the car. She now lives with “incredible survivor’s guilt” over the death of her sister, who was an aspiring graphic designer and weeks away from her Sweet Sixteen, Parkinson said.
As Parkinson shared the details of Alexis’ death, Wenck stood beside her.
She cannot bring herself to speak about the incident publicly, Parkinson said.
Reflecting on her own daughter’s death, Parkinson said she had to grapple with the fact that the driver, a man from Washington, Pa., was released from prison while her daughter was left “obliterated.”
The driver had no memory of crashing into her daughter’s car, she said. After Renee Parkinson was ejected from the vehicle onto her back, the man drove on. Later, Parkinson said, the man told police he thought he hit a deer.
“I’m asking you — I’m begging you — this is my legacy and my child’s,” Parkinson said. “I’m begging you, please take one moment and think. Go have your fun, but plan it out, because the world, as you will find out, is so much bigger than just your orbit.”
“You do not have the right to go out into the road and put other people at risk,” she said.
Half an hour earlier, high schoolers gathered at the nearby Saxonburg VFW, where first responders teamed up to demonstrate rescue procedures in the aftermath of a simulated car crash.
The scene of the crash featured a rear-end collision with heavy entrapment. Chuck Lewis, paramedic with Saxonburg VFC Ambulance, explained each procedure step-by-step for students as a fire engine and ambulance from Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Company pulled in, and a LifeFlight helicopter descended on the grassy field.
The demonstration featured four Knoch student actors: seniors Ava Breese and Sam Robb, junior Morgan Clark and sophomore Toby Webb.
Paramedics proceeded to take the windshield off the vehicle that had sustained the most damage to extricate the crash victims. They popped the passenger side window and it shattered. Finally, crews pulled open the roof flap.
Two of the crash victims received neck braces, and were walked to an ambulance to be evaluated.
One crash victim was put up in a gurney and would have been airlifted.
“They’ll put (the patient) on a cot and go either in the ambulance for initial triage and treatment here, or they’ll go directly to the helicopter and the helicopter crew will do their thing there,” Lewis said. “The helicopters are very small. In the ambulance, we have a lot of room — it’s like a mini ER room … we can work with five or six people, no problem, plus the patient.”
“In the helicopter, it’s hard to get even three people plus the patient,” he said. “It’s very cramped, so we try to do as much as we can ahead of time before we put the patient in the air.”
Paramedics work within a time frame called the “golden hour,” Lewis said.
“We try to get the patient, from the time of the injury to the time the patient is ready to go into surgery or whatever in the hospital, in less than hour,” he said.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, fatalities in distracted driving crashes and head-on crashes reached a 10-year high in 2022.
“When I talk about distracted driving, I’m talking about not just texting,” he said. “But, you know, having a coffee and spilling a coffee, trying to reach for something in your glove box, taking your eyes off (the road), taking your hands off the wheel.”
“It’s very important that we pay attention to the road, and not to the other important things that might be in our lives,” he said.
