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Dover Airmen learn about consequences, choices

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  • By Airman 1st Class Shen-Chia Chu
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Orlando City Fire Department firefighters and paramedics, Pat Kelly and Chris Stocks, came to give Team Dover Airmen a glimpse of what they see and do every single day on the streets of Orlando, Fla.

The firemen came to present "Street Smart" from the Stay Alive From Education Program during the 101 Critical Days of Summer Briefing May 19 in the Base Theater.

"We're not here to preach or lecture about drinking and driving," Mr. Kelly said to the Airmen. "This presentation is about making choices and knowing the consequences of the actions we make.

"We want to show you in graphic detail the consequences of your actions, should you make a few poor decisions such as drinking and driving, getting into a vehicle with a driver under the influence of alcohol or not putting on your seatbelt," he said.

Getting the Call 

"In our career, we mainly respond to three types of calls," said Mr. Stocks.

Besides the usual fire calls to put out fires or medical calls to stabilize patients and rush them to a doctor, they say they dread the third type of call the most.

"The third type of call is a trauma call," said Mr. Stocks. "The definition of trauma is any unexpected, violent insult or injury to the human body. We see all types of trauma calls - shooting, stabbing, old-fashioned beat-downs, people hit by vehicles, car crashes, sports injuries and more that usually affects the younger crowd."

"What you are about to see throughout this presentation is extremely explicit," he said.

Silence fills the darkened theater until an eerie ambulance siren resonates throughout the room.

Mr. Kelly said the graphic slide show presentation included real pictures of real people, as the background noise was filled with dispatchers responding to the trauma calls.

"The pictures were a direct result of death for those who used drugs or alcohol and did not wear their seatbelts. They were all young people, in your age group and every last one of them - is dead," said Mr. Kelly. 

Newton's Law

"When traveling all over the world doing this presentation, we ask for the excuses as to why people don't like wearing seatbelts," said Mr. Stocks. "You're not alone if you've raised your hand to one of these excuses for not wearing a seatbelt: it's not comfortable, it wrinkles my clothes, I forget to put it on or it will only be a short trip around the corner."

Mr. Kelly demonstrated why there isn't a good excuse not to wear a seatbelt with a cylindrical glass as a car and an egg as the driver.

"Newton's law of inertia states that an object of motion stays in motion," he said. "If you are driving 45 miles per hour in your car, then you are traveling 45 miles per hour in your car - along with your CDs, books and pennies, and everything in the car is going at that same speed."

"As you're driving down the road, another driver isn't paying attention to the stop sign ahead," said Mr. Kelly.

Smack.

"And he totals your car," said Mr. Kelly, as he strikes the bottom of the container against Mr. Stock's palm, who was the other vehicle in this scenario.

Mr. Kelly explained that everything in the car acts as a projectile if not buckled down and our bodies are fragile just like the egg that was smashed into pieces.

"Just crashing at the speed of thirty-to-forty miles an hour without wearing your seatbelt gave you your spinal cord injury and you'll never be able to walk again," he said.

As Mr. Kelly showed the slideshow, he explained each of those killed in the car accidents probably made the same excuses.

"Very rarely do we have to stop to seek help to bring a dead, young person's body out of the car, because they're not wearing their seatbelt in the first place," said Mr. Stock, explaining that most not wearing seatbelts are ejected from the vehicle during a crash.

The presenters gave a visual demonstration of what happens to a drunk driver who is intoxicated, decides to drive and doesn't wear a seatbelt with Senior Airman Alex Keel, 736th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, as a model.

Using needles, syringes and other supplies, the firemen paramedics went through a step-by-step process of what exactly happens when they arrive on the scene of a crash, all the way through rehabilitation of the patient.

"I don't know why, but bleeding patients from the crash always ask us - whether they're going to be able to live or die," he said. "We see way too many vehicle crashes where they don't make it after receiving treatment."
Many deaths from the scenarios presented are preventable if you decide to make the right choice by wearing your seatbelt or having someone else drive that's not intoxicated, he said.